Emmet O'Neill has been appointed as chief executive of the petrol station chain Topaz Energy.

He will replace Sean Corkery who is to step down from the role on February 1st 2015.

Mr O’Neill (35) is the nephew of businessman Denis O’Brien, who recently acquired the chain of 33 service stations.

He founded Smiles Dental chain in 2005 and grew it to become one of the largest providers of general and specialist dental services in Ireland and the UK with 78 branches between the two countries. Mr. O’Neill sold the business to Oasis Healthcare for €36 million earlier this year.

Prior to setting up Smiles, Mr. O'Neill worked in aircraft finance. In March of this year he was appointed to the board of Topaz alongside former Taoiseach Brian Cowen and and the ex-AIB managing director Colm Doherty. Topaz said Mr O'Neill had led a number of projects at Topaz in recent months.

“I am absolutely delighted to be taking up this role at Topaz and to working with a great team of employees and business partners across the country. We aim to build a world class retail and fuel business and to expand our operations significantly over the coming years. Everybody connected with the Topaz business has been incredibly welcoming and I know they all share our ambition for the business,” he said.

Topaz has an annual turnover of €3 billion and processes one million transactions every month. It employs 1,600 people.