Manna Drone Delivery Appoints Former DAA CEO Kenny Jacobs as Executive Chairman, One Month After Grounding Irish Fleet

Irish drone delivery company Manna has announced the appointment of Kenny Jacobs, former CEO of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), as Executive Chairman and President. The move comes just four weeks after Manna suspended its Irish drone delivery operations, a decision the company framed as a "strategic pause" rather than a permanent exit, citing regulatory and planning obstacles as the primary drivers.

Manna stated that Jacobs' appointment coincides with the company shifting its strategic focus to markets where regulations and local planning frameworks are "ready to support drone delivery."

Kenny Jacobs Brings Aviation and Airport Scaling Experience

Jacobs joins Manna with an extensive track record in international market expansion across aviation, retail, and digital businesses. Manna founder Bobby Healy said the company needed precisely this profile as it enters its commercial expansion phase in the US and UK, noting that Jacobs brings "the experience needed to scale operations and commercial partnerships."

Jacobs described Manna as "one of the most exciting companies of this generation in Ireland." His appointment follows closely on the heels of the company's $50 million Series B funding round, which closed on 1 April. That round was led by ARK Invest, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, and Schooner Capital, with Coca-Cola HBC and Molten Ventures participating, bringing Manna's total cumulative funding to $110 million.

Founded in 2018, Manna has completed more than 300,000 deliveries across Ireland, Finland, and Texas, USA. Jacobs previously stepped down as DAA CEO in February 2026; the DAA is the Irish state body that manages Dublin and Cork airports. Prior to the DAA, he served as Chief Marketing Officer at Ryanair, where he led the airline's digital expansion, and has also held positions at Tesco and Metro Group.

Appointment Announced One Month After Irish Fleet Grounding

Manna announced in June that it was halting drone delivery operations in Ireland, characterising the decision as a strategic pause and pointing to regulatory and planning-level barriers. The suspension came weeks after Fingal County Council rejected Manna's application to retain its operational hub at Coolmine. Manna had cited noise research conducted by Trinity College Dublin in its defence.

Manna told outlets including the Irish Times that the company already holds operational approvals in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Ireland, it added, will remain the home of its research, engineering, manufacturing, and corporate headquarters, employing close to 200 people. This positioning is consistent with the direction Bobby Healy outlined in May at the XPONENTIAL trade show in Detroit, where he announced expanded manufacturing capacity in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and revealed he was relocating there personally.

Jacobs' appointment marks the second high-profile aviation figure to join Manna's orbit this year. In January, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford visited Manna's Dublin headquarters to study its European flight operations model, at a time when Part 108 BVLOS rulemaking was still advancing through the US regulatory process.

Analysis

Reviewing Manna's sequence of moves through 2026, the strategic arc is unmistakable: in January, the FAA Administrator flew to Dublin to learn from the company; in March, it demonstrated blood transport between Dublin hospitals; in April, it closed a $50 million Series B; in May, it announced manufacturing expansion in Tulsa; in June, its Irish fleet was grounded following a rejected planning application; and in July, it recruited an Executive Chairman with a mandate focused squarely on US and UK market development. This is not a company adrift — it is a company being incrementally pushed out of its home market by a planning system that was never designed with drone infrastructure in mind.

The irony is not lost that Manna has chosen to hire the man who once ran Ireland's largest aviation infrastructure. A planning framework that could not accommodate a drone hub occupying a handful of parking spaces has now prompted the former manager of the national airports to redirect his energies toward opening American and British skies. Ireland is simultaneously exporting both its technology and its administrative talent within the same press release.

Manna's drones did not fail in Ireland on technical grounds — the safety record remained clean, noise impact was independently assessed by Trinity College researchers, and users kept placing orders. What failed was a planning framework designed for road traffic being applied to aircraft. Ireland's National Drone Framework, announced by the government last year, has yet to be meaningfully implemented. Whether that framework arrives before Manna's "strategic pause" becomes a permanent exit is the question that now matters most. Jacobs was not hired to wait in Dublin. He was hired because Washington and London have stopped making Manna wait.

Source: Irish Examiner

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