Andrea Reynolds

Andrea is Irish Tatler’s Business Woman of the Year (Business Award) 2024 winner and was shortlisted for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2024. 

Andrea started her career as an accountant with KPMG, quickly focussing on raising funds for small businesses. Andrea launched Swoop in 2018 to help SMEs start up, scale up, and finance their growth. Arguably the UK’s number one expert in business funding, she is affectionately known to colleagues and industry peers as the ‘Martin Lewis of business finance’.

Proudly Irish – her father, Albert Reynolds was Taoiseach (prime minister) – Andrea and Swoop are at the forefront of an Irish resurgence, not only by taking the brand out around the world but also by lifting up other business owners along the way. 

“We are our own best case study,” says Andrea. “We’ve used grants, borrowing and equity to fund our growth. We’ve switched providers to save money. We’ve had to change course, adapt and change and work with different rules as we’ve opened in different territories. Swoop’s core values are empathy and integrity: empathy, because of our shared experience and integrity because we know that the only way to build trust is by doing the right thing, every time.”