The Focus on Corporate Finance 2026
Registering for The Focus on Corporate Finance at CPD Fest 2026 couldn’t be more straightforward. We have three packages for you to choose from – 8 hours, 16 hours and 24 hours of CPD – allowing you to customise the event to your own specific needs. Once purchased, pick ‘n’ mix the topics of most interest and relevance to you from any of the sessions running across the week of CPD Fest 2026.
CPD Fest Packages:
The 12 Gifts Of CPD Fest
Over the coming weeks we are going to give you advance access to hugely valuable extracts from the note packs The CPD Fest & The Essential Advisors’ Mix.
With The 12 Gifts of CPD Fest you will get guides, financial statements, checklists, tools, tax papers, letters of engagement and reports all the way up to and including the kitchen sink!
Registration for The 12 Gifts Of CPD Fest is free, quick and straight forward and you can do so here:
Event Details:
Session 1: Cost of Capital, Is It for Real, Does It Matter, How Do I Estimate It?
Time: 09:00 – 10:40
Speaker: Cormac Lucey – Finance Lecturer & Economics Columnist
Cost of capital is the most important and perhaps the trickiest aspect of corporate finance. At core, it represents the rate of return that we would expect tom generate from an investment of similar riskiness to the one we are considering. If we can achieve at least that rate of return from our prospective investment, we should proceed. If we can’t, we should not proceed.
Cormac Lucey will cover the following topics during this webinar:
- Estimating cost of capital – the basics
- Complicating factors:
o Market volatility and the changing market cost of capital
o National considerations
o Sectoral considerations
o The small company factor
At the end of the session participants will fully understand the theory behind cost of capital and the key practical factors to be considered in estimating cost of capital for particular firms.
The session is targeted at corporate board directors, at chief financial officers and at those who advise them on corporate financial management.
Course level: Advanced
Session 2: Project Evaluation: Basics, Complexities and Key Factors To Consider in Practice
Time: 11:00 – 12:40
Speaker: Cormac Lucey – Finance Lecturer & Economics Columnist
Financial evaluation of proposed investment projects can be a key part of a CFO’s job.
What will be covered:
- Project evaluation using Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) – the basics
- Complicating factors:
o The multiple-division company
o Uncertainty regarding cash flow projections
o Then business cycle
o Investing abroad
At the end of the session participants will fully understand the theory and practice of DCF analysis as applied to project evaluation.
The session is targeted at corporate board directors, at chief financial officers and at those who advise them on corporate financial management.
Course level: Advanced
Session 3: Buying & Selling a Business / Company - The Steps Involved 2026
Time: 13:40 – 15:20
Speaker: John Murphy – Connext
TBA
Session 4: The New Technological Revolution: Economics meets Financial Reality in the Age of AI
Time: 15:40 – 17:20
Speaker: Constantin Gurdgiev – Associate Professor of Finance
The Economics of AI hold the promise of immense economy-wide productivity gains and revolutionary changes in business models, from AI-centric to AI-adjacent companies. AI developers, suppliers, and adjacent technologies providers are currently experiencing an unprecedented boom in demand and investment. AI adopters and adapters are witnessing volatile, uncertain, and often ambiguous returns on their new technology-related allocations.
In the long run, however, two things are becoming clearer and clearer with every iteration of the AI revolution. One: closed business platforms adopted by the US and, more broadly, Western economies are rapidly losing ground to open platforms pioneered by China and currently displacing traditional Western models in Europe and Asia Pacific. Two: the status quo of unregulated, uncontrolled innovation in AI and AI-adjacent technologies is going to give way to tightly regulated, state-centric competition.
The first reality co-causes – alongside the threats of AI power – the latter reality. The latter one co-causes – alongside the Great Powers Competition in the geopolitical realm – the former. This bidirectional causality is unique to any technological development, save the discovery and commercialization of nuclear power. And it promises to reshape forever the way we think about the financial, economic, geopolitical, and social environments we live in.
Constantin Gurdgiev will cover the following topics during this webinar:
- The current cutting-edge macroeconomic modeling of AI competition – latest research (2025-2026) on the direction of AI productivity impact and macroeconomic outcomes projections.
- The current state of play in financial markets as these re-gear toward an AI-centric world.
- The current state of the AI-adopting, AI-adapting, and AI-adjacent companies and players and projections forward.
- The emerging regulatory and State control frameworks for containing AI-related risks and uncertainties.
- Why the AI economy paradigm does not fit into our risk management and investment models and what changes in these are needed to account for the onset of the Age of AI.
By attending this session, you will learn about the cutting-edge thinking on AI economics that shapes technology-related decisions being made in corporate boardrooms, regulatory agencies, and corridors of power.
CPD Course Speakers
Cormac Lucey – Finance Lecturer & Economics Columnist
Cormac Lucey teaches finance, at post-graduate level, at the IMI, UCD, TCD and Chartered Accountants Ireland.
He is also a commentator on economic and current affairs both on broadcast media and through his weekly columns with The Sunday Times (Irish edition) and The Times (Ireland).
And he is chairman of the Hibernia Forum, an independent think-tank which promotes the free market, individual liberty and responsible and prudent government.
He served as a special adviser to Michael McDowell when he was Tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) between 2002 and 2007. Cormac previously worked both in industry and in corporate finance in both Ireland in Germany.
John Murphy - OmniPro, Connext
As a Director of OmniPro Tax and Legal Limited, John relishes problem-solving to help accountants develop innovative client solutions and sharing his technical knowledge on tax, company law, financial reporting and auditing.
A Chartered Tax Adviser, he advises clients in practice on a range of issues from income tax, tax planning, restructuring to exit planning as well as advising on company law in relation to these and many other matters. In addition, he provides support on financial reporting, auditing and company law; conducts company valuations and advises on pre-sale restructuring. He is also an insolvency practitioner who acts as liquidator in members voluntary liquidations and is a Registered Auditor.
Prior to this John played a key role as a researcher and subject-matter expert in developing OmniPro information products such as the CompaniesAct2014.com and FRS102.com. As a speaker at OmniPro CPD events, he brings these industry-leading insights to accountants participating in our training programmes.
As a Chartered Accountant, John has over a decade’s Big 4 experience with EY and PwC, providing tax and audit services for a portfolio of clients, ranging in scale from SMEs to multinationals.
Des O'Neill - Connext Partners
Having worked for a number of years in practice, and with one of the profession’s regulatory and support institutes, Des co-founded OmniPro to develop tools, techniques, products and services that make accountancy more profitable and rewarding.
Des is passionate about bringing innovation to the accountancy profession and enabling accountants to achieve what they want from their careers and business. His core belief is that when empowered to achieve their best, accountants can deliver transformative results for clients.
He holds qualifications from the ACCA Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, CPA Institute of Certified Public Accountants and ACIS Association of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Constantin Gurdgiev - Associate Professor of Finance
Constantin Gurdgiev is the Associate Professor of Finance with Monfort College of Business, University of Northern Colorado (USA), Visiting Assistant Professor at the Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, and principal at the Macroview.eu – a service specializing in geopolitical and geoeconomics risks and uncertainty advisory. Professor Gurdgiev serves as a Co-founder and Chairperson of the Board at the Irish Mortgage Holders Organization https://www.mortgageholders.ie/, and a Co-founder, Board Member and Member of the Risk and Audit Committee at iCare Housing https://icarehousing.ie/. In his spare time, Constantin is an avid fly fisherman, mountaineer and forager across the great outdoors of the Western United States, Dolomites and Alps.
Conor Grimes - Connext Partners
Conor is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland and has several years of experience working in corporate finance roles with international professional service firms. Separately, he has also worked in Head of Finance roles in industry and as such is uniquely placed in understanding client’s needs and advising them through a transaction process.
Outside of Connext Partners, Conor is a Non-Executive Director and chair of the finance committee of Tuath, one of Ireland’s largest Approved Housing Bodies.
Dara Kelly - Grant Thornton
Dara joined Grant Thornton in 2005 as part of the advisory team. He has extensive experience in advisory services, and was admitted to the Partnership in 2016.
From 2013 to 2016, Dara was based in New York where he led the Grant Thornton . The role involved assisting US corporations execute development strategies into European markets. During his three years in New York, Dara also worked closely with the US transaction services team on significant buy side transactions for large private equity clients and investment banks.
On his return to Ireland, Dara took up the lead of the Irish firm’s China/Hong Kong Business Group.
Prior to 2013, Dara worked in the Irish advisory team where he gained valuable experience working on a number of complex corporate finance assignments including MBO’s, bank financing/re-financing, valuations and fund raisings.
His main area of expertise is in corporate finance, transaction services and corporate restructuring and he has extensive experience in providing strategic advice to leading Irish corporates and financial institutions.
Dara’s skill set also incorporates experience from the provision of International Business Reviews, strategic option papers and exit strategies to both accelerated and controlled mergers and acquisitions, obtaining maximum value for his clients.
The Focus on Corporate Finance 2026 is brought to you in association with:
