Matt is one of Ireland's most popular and effective conference chairmen and event hosts, combining his ability to ask the relevant questions with a professional hosting style appropriate to the event. He is also an engaging, entertaining and informed speaker on a variety of topics.
Matt Cooper presents and edits the daily news, current affairs and sports programme The Last Word on Today FM from Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm. He is also an experienced television presenter. He currently presents the current affairs show The Tonight Show with Ivan Yates that airs four times weekly on TV3 at 11pm. In sports, he hosted TV3’s Rugby World Cup coverage in 2007 and 2015 and will be hosting the station’s Six Nations Coverage from 2018 when it takes over as host broadcaster for the Irish market. He was previously anchor for the six years that TV3 broadcast championship GAA games from 2008 to 2013.
He is a former editor of The Sunday Tribune, having been appointed at the age of 30 in 1996. He left for a career in radio in 2003 but continues to write a leader page column for the Irish Daily Mail each Wednesday and also writes on business, economics and politics for The Sunday Business Post. He was twice National Journalist of the Year and twice Business Journalist of the Year.
Matt is a partner in the television company Playmaker-media, which devised and made the rugby series Area 22, and which made the acclaimed Olympics documentary “No Earthly King” in 2012. He also made current affairs documentaries for RTE and TV3, most recently “Ireland’s Housing Market – What’s Next?” (TV3, November 2014) and “The Brexit Dilemma” (TV3, June 2016).
He was the narrator on the British made documentary “Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang” about a controversial international basketball game staged in North Korea in January 2014 which was attended by its dictator Kim Jong-Un. Matt travelled to North Korea as part of Rodman’s group for the filming of the documentary and had a ringside seat to the proceedings, making him the first Irish journalist to ever have such extraordinary access. The documentary is available on Netflix US.
He is the author of three critically acclaimed and commercially successful books: 'The Maximalist', his biography of the iconic Irish sporting, business and media figure Tony O’Reilly, was published in 2015; 'Who Really Runs Ireland' was published in 2009; 'How Ireland Really Went Bust' was published in 2011.
In the landmark biography on Tony O'Reilly 'The Maximalist', Matt Cooper draws on an abundance of new material, including interviews with many of O’Reilly’s closest family, friends, associates and rivals, to uncover the man behind the myth. It documents in unflinching detail and with great subtlety the meteoric rise and slow unravelling of an Irish icon.
"I thought Matt did an excellent job and managed to keep the audience interested for well over an hour. The format worked extremely well and there was a lot of interaction from the audience. Matt was very generous with his time and also caught up with some of our customers for a drink after the event which was much appreciated." - Michael Callaghan, CMS Distribution, May 2014
"Matt, you were great last night and thank you so much for having such patience with a particularly raucous crowd!" - Billy Huggard, Operations Director, Mediateam, 2014
"The audience reaction has been overwhelmingly positive that the right "master of ceremonies" was conducting the evening. Despite their attempts to distract and heckle, you did a great job keeping the event on track and helping us to deliver another successful outing for the ICT Industry in Ireland." - Billy Huggard, Operations Director, Mediateam
"The event went really well... Matt was well received and we would consider running this type of event again in the future" - Larry Taylor, BT Ireland, January 2013
"He was excellent and proved a huge hit with our audience. His speech was very entertaining and he did a superb Q&A session for us. Matt was also very sociable with our guests in the bar afterwards.He is a thorough gent and helped make our Christmas lunch a very successful one." - Gerard Sproule, C/O LotusWorks, December 2012
"Matt was spot on again and really added to the quality of our conference." - Barry Ennis,Sales Director, PensionSource, December 2012
"Just wanted to say thank you so much for your work at the Undergraduate Awards events this year. Hope you enjoyed the events, at least as much as possible when you're working. You were a pleasure to work with and extremely professional which allowed me to relax knowing it was in your capable hands. You were superb, myself and everyone involved thought you did a fantastic job." - Richard Harris, Events Co-Ordinator, Google Ireland
"Matt Cooper did a remarkable job for us in chairing the IBEC HR Leadership Summit 2011 and managed to engage the audience and get the very best out of the national and international line up of speakers for the benefit of the 500 CEO's, HR Directors and other business leaders who attended Ireland's leading HR conference" - Brendan McGinty, IBEC, October 2011
"We were delighted to have you as master of ceremonies and you guided the proceedings excellently. I have received fantastic feedback from the delegates so many thanks for joining us in Galway." - Stephen O'Riordan, Chief Executive, Londis
