Conor is also the CEO of the New Ireland Commission which is an SDLP initiative for new thinking, ambition and imagination. The aim, through citizen engagement, is to create an ambitious blueprint of options and possibilities for how we can achieve a sustainable, inclusive and reconciled New Ireland.


He is also Co-Chair of One Young World Belfast 2023 when Northern Ireland will host the world’s largest global youth summit.

Conor was previously a Governor of The Irish Times Trust and inaugural Chair of The Ireland Funds Young Leaders in Belfast.


Previously, as a solicitor he represented clients to the Supreme Court of both the UK and Ireland and was involved in many high profile and pioneering human rights cases. He also ran a bespoke leadership advisory company which provided trusted strategic advice to senior leaders across business, government, digital and entertainment industries. Conor has experience in bringing large-scale impactful strategies to life and has built relationships and networks locally and internationally.

Born into a mixed-background family, Karl has seen first-hand, throughout his upbringing, the need for a society which truly represents all its citizens. He genuinely believes that the building of a New Ireland is key to providing renewed opportunity to the people of our island, and crucially important to reconciling our shared history.

Karl believes that high-quality education is a fundamental right, and consequently, after finishing secondary school he began employment as a youth worker in a Unionist community in order to better understand how educational underachievement impacts working-class men and boys throughout Northern Ireland. He would later go on to work in the Northern Ireland Assembly before earning a place on the Washington Ireland Program Class of 2023.

As part of the program, Karl served in Congressman Mike Quigley’s Washington D.C office where he provided briefing memos on issues relating to the war in Ukraine, Agriculture, and Human Rights Issues.

Passionate about social change, Karl was a founding member of the Anti-Conversion Therapy Coalition which sought to ban conversion therapy across the island. He is particularly active on issues surrounding Housing, Economic Opportunity, and Environment. In the Summer of 2022, he travelled to Palestine to work having raised over €10,000 in University Scholarships for underprivileged young people seeking third-level education.

He founded the anti-poverty charity Foodstock and the Community Solidarity Hub in West Belfast. He also fronts the Fans Supporting Foodbanks NI initiative as a part of the ‘Right to Food’ campaign which brings local football clubs and fans together to help tackle poverty in communities.

As part of the Plan for Peace Changemakers programme, Paul leads the One Community Project which creates spaces for reconciliation, facilitates peacebuilding and works to celebrate the diversity and cultures that exists within communities while connecting asylum seekers and refugees throughout Belfast. Paul is passionate about tackling mental health issues that exist within communities and is the chair of West Wellbeing, a suicide awareness and prevention charity which provides services for children and adults across Belfast.

In 2022, Paul was presented with the ‘Unsung Hero’ award as part of the Sunday Life ‘Spirit of NI Awards’ and in 2023 he received a special recognition award from Families First NI for work in the community.

She was previously the managing director of Our Future Our Choice Northern Ireland and in May 2023 was elected Councillor for Newry DEA for the SDLP.