{"id":537618,"date":"2026-07-07T14:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537618\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T14:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:48:11","slug":"former-daa-chief-kenny-jacobs-joins-manna-as-executive-chairman-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537618\/","title":{"rendered":"Former DAA chief Kenny Jacobs joins Manna as executive chairman \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former head of airport operator, DAA, Kenny Jacobs<\/a>, has joined drone delivery company Manna<\/a> as executive chairman, as the company pushes for growth outside Ireland. <\/p>\n

Jacobs has also been appointed president of the company, which was founded by entrepreneur Bobby Healy in 2018. <\/p>\n

\u201cManna is one of the most exciting companies coming out of Ireland in a generation. Bobby and the team have built world-leading drone delivery technology and the opportunity now is to expand and commercialise that across a variety of industries in the US, UK and other markets where policy and regulation are more advanced. I could not be more excited to join,\u201d Jacobs said. <\/p>\n

Manna is shifting its focus to the US and UK, but pausing deliveries in Ireland as it cited \u201cthe absence of a clear national policy framework\u201d, with the sector\u2019s reliance on local planning processes creating \u201cuncertainty around the infrastructure required to support drone delivery at scale\u201d.<\/p>\n

Although Ireland, where it employs close to 200 people, will remain the company\u2019s base for research, engineering, manufacturing and corporate functions, Manna said it will focus investment and operational resources on the United States, the UK and markets where regulatory pathways and local planning \u201care ready to support drone delivery\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Manna announces \u2018strategic pause\u2019 that grounds drone deliveries in IrelandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In February, Jacobs stepped down as chief executive of DAA <\/a>after he settled a lawsuit brought against the State airport operator following a rift with the board of the company. <\/p>\n

In addition to leading DAA, Jacobs was previously chief marketing officer of Ryanair at a time when the company was expanding and undergoing digital transformation. He also held roles with Tesco and Metro Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cKenny is one of the few executives who has scaled aviation, retail and digital businesses internationally \u2013 and done so commercially. We are entering the most important phase in Manna\u2019s history, taking Irish-built technology to the markets where commercial drone delivery is now a reality,\u201d said Healy. \u201cHaving Kenny as executive chair and president will give Manna the experience at scaling up operations and commercial partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, Manna announced it had raised $50 million in funding to drive new growth. Led by Ark Invest, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and Schooner Capital, it brought the total amount raised by the company to $110 million. <\/p>\n

The funding was expected to create up to 400 jobs at Manna in robotics, software engineering, aviation and operations, split between the US and Ireland. However, the number of jobs coming to Ireland was dependent on the ability of Manna to grow here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former head of airport operator, DAA, Kenny Jacobs, has joined drone delivery company Manna as executive chairman,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[140450,72,10725,61,60,12844,68187],"class_list":["post-537618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bobby-healy","tag-business","tag-daa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kenny-jacobs","tag-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}