Jerry Kennelly is an Irish photojournalist and entrepreneur, and founder of Stockbyte and Tweak.com. In August 2017 he received the TK Whitaker Award for “his significant contributions to business and the wider community of current and future entrepreneurs in Ireland and beyond.”
Career
Kennelly started his career by working in his family's newspaper, Kerry's Eye, founded in 1974 by his parents, Pádraig Kennelly and Joan Kennelly, with his brothers, Padraig Jnr, Brendan and Kerry. Kennelly went on to start Newsfax in 1981 which was an independent news and photo agencyserving Irish and international newspapers, magazines and broadcast media. In 1996, Kennelly and a small team began working on the creation of Europe's first digital stock photography library. It was initially called Stockpix, later renamed Stockbyte. Stockbyte offered CDs containing 100 images launched at Macworld in San Francisco in January 1997. Two years later, Stockbyte offered online downloads of all its imagery. Kennelly is the co-founder of several not-for-profit ventures in Ireland such as the Young Entrepreneur Programme, the Junior Entrepreneur Programme, and the Endeavour Programme. The Young Entrepreneur Programme ran for several years, during which over 5,000 teenagers took part and developed business plans under the mentorship of Ireland's entrepreneurs. The Endeavour Programme sought to help Irish start-up businesses which were mentored by leading entrepreneurs. Kennelly remains the co-founder and chairman of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme since 2010 which helps fifth and sixth class students in Ireland learn about entrepreneurship. In 2011, Kennelly launched Tweak, for small and medium businesses to achieve graphic design through an online tool and marketing materials. Tweak works with printers such as Helloprint, Flyeralarm and Druck.at. In 2017, Kennelly launched a second brand called Tweak Cloud which is an online application that allows brands to edit their brand assets online.
