Suzanne Eade will take over as chief executive of HRI, succeeding the long-serving chief executive Brian Kavanagh.

Her appointment was recently notified to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine and is expected to be confirmed shortly by the Minister, Charlie McConalogue.

Eade, from Dublin, has been chief financial officer at HRI since 2015 and will take over from Kavanagh in September.

Prior to joining HRI in 2015, she worked as a finance director at Boots Ireland. She has held other senior roles in the multinational sector including with Procter & Gamble and Gillette. Eade studied economics and Italian at UCD and in the 1980s, she worked in London with Gillette’s treasury department for the next 16 years, with Gillette acquired by Procter & Gamble during that period.

Brian Kavanagh, who will take up a new role as the Curragh chief executive in November, steps down after spending 20 years at the helm at HRI.

In her role as chief finance officer at HRI, she had control over one of the largest expenditure accounts in Irish sport.

She also played a key role in the liaison between racing and its many stakeholders, including the government, through the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund.