Kingsley Aikins was born in Dublin and educated at The High School and Trinity College Dublin and graduated with an honours degree in Economics and Politics. He has a post graduate diploma in International Marketing and has studied and worked in France and Spain. For 5 years he was the Sydney based representative of the Irish Trade Board (now Enterprise Ireland) and IDA Ireland.
He founded the Lansdowne Club in Sydney and set up the Australian Ireland Fund and served as executive director for 2 years before moving to Boston as President and CEO of the Worldwide Ireland Funds – an organisation that has raised over $500 million for projects of Peace, Culture, Community Development and Education throughout the island of Ireland. After 21 years he left the Funds to establish his own company Diaspora Matters that advises governments, corporates and institutions.
He has written extensively on Diaspora, Philanthropy and Networking and has developed a range of online training programmes in these areas.He trains individuals on public speaking and has spoken at TEDx and the Pendulum Summit. He was awarded a CBE for his work on British Irish relations. He represented Trinity College, Irish Universities, Vichy (France) and Leinster at rugby. He is married with 3 children and lives in Dublin.
