Breda Sweeney holds a first class honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of Galway, a first class honours Master of Accounting degree from UCD and a PhD degree from DCU. She is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland, having professionally trained in PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dublin and Sydney. She previously lectured at UCD for 5 years. She is joint editor of Accounting, Finance, and Governance Review and serves on the editorial board of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal and International Journal of Auditing. She is co-chair of EIASM conference New Directions in Management Accounting. Breda was a visiting professor in Stockholm School of Economics (2022), VU Amsterdam (2022), Esade Business School, Barcelona (2014) and an Erskine fellow in University of Canterbury in 2016. She is Head of Discipline of Accountancy and Finance.  She also served as a member of University of Galway Governing Authority 2016-2020.

Breda's research interests are in the field of performance measurement and management control. Using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, she has examined management control practices in a range of settings in both Ireland and Europe including professional services firms, MedTech and IT industries and in scaling organisations. Her research has provided insights into the evolution of values and management control practices during periods of rapid growth, how values can be used to reconcile conflicing KPIs, the drivers of organisational ambidexterity, use of performance measurement systems in an enabling manner, management of organisational tensions, and the characteristics of a pragmatic use of management control practices. She has published widely in these areas in top international accounting and business journals. Along with her co-authors Dr Patricia Martyn and Professor Anne Lillis, she won the 2025 David Sollomons Prize (sponsored by CIMA) for her paper on 'Using emphasis frames to embed values in the interpretation of multiple performance criteria' which appeared in Management Accounting Research, Vol. 66, 2025. 

Her work has had wide-ranging impact and is cited by PCAOB in a number of recent audit regulations in US. Recent research projects include a CIMA funded project on use of technology in finance functions (with Prof Josep Bisbe and Dr Mike Farrell) and a Chartered Accountants Ireland funded study on management control and scaling (with Dr Marjo Vaisanen).

Breda's research has informed her teaching of management control modules to Master of Accounting, MSc in Corporate Finance, MSc in International Accounting & Analytics, and MBA students. Her modules focus on management accounting techniques for sustainable business success and incorporate learning oucomes related to SDGs 3, 4, and 9.