Declan Ganley

Who is Declan Ganley?

Declan James Ganley is an Irish entrepreneur, businessman and political activist.

Primarily a telecommunications entrepreneur, he has built businesses across Europe, Russia, and latterly, the United States. He is currently the Chairman and CEO of Rivada Networks, a telecommunications company specialising in the efficient use and arbitrage of wireless spectrum. Rivada patented groundbreaking technologies in the field of Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage.

In 2013, Ganley testified to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce that Rivada's patents had the potential to "save the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars". He founded and sold successful companies in forestry, and the online sector. During the 2008 Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, Ganley and the Libertas Institute successfully campaigned for a No vote. He again campaigned for a "No" vote in the 2012 Irish European Fiscal Compact referendum. Aside from this, he has guest-presented Tonight with Vincent Browne.

In 2009, he was founder and chairman of a political party, Libertas with pan-European ambitions. The party was unsuccessful in this ambition in the 2009 European Parliament Election, succeeding in getting only one candidate elected, in France. Ganley was upbeat after the defeat, describing the venture as a "failed experiment". His first book, The Fight for Democracy, was published in 2009. He co-authored, with Joseph Stiglitz and others, of the book What If Ireland Defaults, a collection of essays on the response to the Irish economic crisis.