Dermott Rowan is the managing director and co-owner of fashion brands Orla Kiely and Olive & Orange. His wife Orla Kiely started the brand in the early nineties as a women's bag designer. Rowan was born in Dublin where he attended Clongowes Wood College, and graduated from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He worked as a financial controller before 1997, when he and Kiely founded the Orla Kiely Partnership, which would become Kiely Rowan Plc. in 2004.