Richard O’Donohue joins AFC as a senior thought leader

Richard O’Donohue has joined AFC’s team of senior industry thought leaders from the auto, equipment and asset finance industry. Richard who lives in Ireland, stood down from Dell’s financial services arm earlier this year. At Dell he had global responsibility for strategic partnerships.

Richard will now assist AFC during H1 2025 in developing its European content starting with a series of podcasts sponsored by Alfa which will focus on the equipment finance and captive market in Europe. Our podcast agenda will include interviews with senior European lenders, vendors, innovators and experts from the Northern European market. Scheduled topics for the first six AFC European podcasts sponsored by Alfa will include:

• market trends
• the regulatory environment
• how captives and funders can collaborate
• sustainability as a differentiator, and 
• evolving business models in equipment finance. 

Edward Peck, founder of AFC, said: “We are delighted to have Richard join our growing team of industry leaders which includes David Betteley, formerly global head of financial services at Jaguar Land Rover; John Rees former chief commercial officer at Societe Generale Equipment Finance and Stephen Bassett, former director at Arkle. Richard will build our EU credentials and help expand our network further among equipment manufacturer captives. He is a very respected industry practitioner and has strong views about how the industry should evolve.”

Richard O’Donohue said “I am keen to encourage my colleagues from the industry to make contact if they would like to take part in our new podcasts. Let’s get some really good discussions on the really key industry topics affecting EU equipment and captive finance during the lead-up to AFC’s European conference in May.

“This is a new format for AFC, and it will be lots of fun making it work. Many thanks to Alfa for supporting the launch of this project.”

Richard O’Donohue joined Dell in 2010 as part of the leadership team that transitioned Dell’s financing business in EMEA from an outsourced model to a captive operation. This was achieved by setting up a regulated bank in Ireland with Dell now offering direct financing in 23 countries in EMEA. Prior to joining Dell, Richard held a variety of sales, business development and risk management roles at Microsoft Financing and Cisco Capital. You can contact Richard directly through AFC at RichardOdonohue@assetfinanceconnect.com

Richard is the second recent appointment for AFC’s European business, with the appointment of tri-lingual Roseanna King (French and German… and a little bit of Russian) who joined the business in October 2024. Roseanna will be working with European lenders and the AFC content team to develop the European conference agenda.

Asset Finance Connect’s European Summit is scheduled for 15th May and will take place in Amsterdam at the NH Barbizon Palace. Details of the European conference, and our European podcast will feature on the Asset Finance Connect website over the coming weeks.