Michael Barton

Regional Director Canada at Invest Northern Ireland leading a team promoting Northern Ireland Trade & Investment opportunities. 

Connecting world class products, services & technology from Northern Ireland to Canadian companies. 

Leads a team that facilitates business introductions and develops relationships & partnerships across sectors. Including AgriTech, Banking & financial services, FinTech, Security & Defence, Cybersecurity, Construction , Waste & Recycling, CleanTech, Health & Life Sciences and Aerospace. 

Builds and manages partnerships & relationships with Canadian academia, government and industry across all 10 provinces and 3 Territories in Canada. These relationships are used to link Northern Ireland & Canada to promote economic growth. 

Responsible for promoting Northern Ireland as an investment & growth location to key business decision makers across Canadian industry - focusing on the 10x Economic Vision priority clusters - Digital, ICT and Creative Industries, Agri-Tech, Fintech/ Financial Services, Life and Health Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering. 

Previous professional experience includes Business Development Leader in Canadian health technology sector. Launched and grew a cloud based SaaS solution & ancillary services to North American allied health professionals. 

Post University worked as new graduate in the Investment Banking sector across Prime Brokerage & Stock Lending functions at a Tier 1 Investment Bank. 

Skills include: Business Development, sales, strategic partnerships, communications, relationship building, revenue growth strategies, channel sales strategy, account management, new market entry strategies, international expansion, international trade, export development.

Accomplished Director of Investment, Trade & Economic Development with 15 years of experience in both the private and public sectors and 5 years of people management experience. 10 plus years of investment attraction, export and growth experience across sectors in Canada and overseas.

Senior agile leader with global experience working for a range of organisations from local governments, Tier 1 Banks to technology start-ups & scale ups.  Successful track record of commercial client wins consisting of multi-million dollar contacts primarily for the SME market.   

Developed partner channels and business development models to facilitate new business and stakeholder relationships.  Brings a deep network of Sr. Government Officials, C-Suite, VC’s, Investors, Industry Associations and Buyers across Canada, USA and Europe.

Michael Smurfit Business School – University College Dublin                                                                    Dublin, Ireland 

Masters in Management MSc                                  2007-2008

• International Business, Banking, Economics, Marketing and Sales, Business Strategy, Project Management