With a strong international perspective and a passion for leveraging innovative technology for good, Hubert Halopé has found his niche in the World Economic Forum, where he is Lead/Platform Curator of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

"The MSc Digital Marketing at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School definitely prepares every student for the digital transformation needs that businesses require in a globalized world. The course offers an excellent variety of modules delivered by high-quality lecturers which give students the tools to apply them through course projects that involve digital strategies for real-world business problems. Digital is not an option anymore for businesses, it is a strategic solution for the business of tomorrow. This course offers a unique learning experience along with constant personal service and support from UCD Staff and Faculty."

"The MSc Management course gives you a strong foundation in business management studies. The joy of discussing subjects like economics, corporate finance , strategy and marketing within a multicultural student and teacher community is unparalleled. The Smurfit experience is world class because it’s not limited to just the classroom. I learned just as much outside. Be it via giving speeches in the Smurfit Toastmasters, attending the Global Leadership Programme or even playing tag rugby with my classmates. These experiences have led me to believe that the MSc Management course and the UCD Smurfit Community help create an environment that encourages curiosity and rewards initiative."

"The MSc International Business gave me the possibility to understand international firms’ best practices to gain competitive advantage. I particularly appreciated its holistic and practical approach. Not only I had chance to work in project groups with people from all around the world, but I could also get in contact with multinational companies headquartered in Dublin. This combination is the key if you are eager to kick off your international career. I was part of a great group of friends and today we are all working for big corporates. If I look back, my experience in the MSc International Business was more than positive."

"I chose UCD Smurfit's MSc Finance as it offers well designed core modules that combine both financial theory and application to real-world situations through multiple projects using industry leading software such as Bloomberg Terminals, MATLAB. The course is taught by world-class academics with extensive professional experience and the cultural diversity of my classmates allowed me to understand different working styles in an international environment. I am thankful to UCD for bundling vast knowledge in a short span that gave me an employability edge and helped me secure my current role at PwC. Overall, I would highly recommend this course for anyone who is eager to grow a career in finance."

"My time at Smurfit and in the MSc International Business programme really gave me the foundations for an exciting career in Business Development. The modules that were taught across the three semesters broadened my horizons in relation to the latest updates in the world of business and gave me the tools to analyse and understand the changes around us. One of my favorite modules was Cross Cultural Management, where our professor really stressed the importance of the society we lived in and all the underlying behaviors that make up each of our personalities and how we interact in a global environment. This really helped me understand my global cohort better and has helped tremendously when I speak to my customers across the Emerging Market region. I definitely recommend this course as it has allowed me to develop as a person, network with some of the top companies all over the world and put me in touch with some of my closest friends."

"The MSc Digital Marketing course at UCD Smurfit School provided me with a fundamental set of critical thinking and analytical skills to fulfil my current role. The practical element of the final project acted as a superb alternative to years of experience often demanded from graduates in our field. During the project, I exercised my skills of market research, digital strategy, branding, analytics and SEO that I acquired earlier throughout the year while also expanding my network of connections in the professional landscape."

"The MSc in Management course gives a solid theoretical foundation with an overview of different disciplines in management studies. With a non-business background and desire to maneuver my career trajectory, this course assisted me to leverage on a field of interest while I worked around everything from economics, accounts,  to supply chain and marketing. Throughout the course, I had various assignments to evaluate and interact with real-time company data whilst recommending insights on the subject. Moreover, in the final semester, the business simulation project culminates all the learnings while you compete to survive in a mock-up business world and evaluate your decisions based on company finance, HR, marketing, pricing, market demographics and so on. Additionally, UCD Michael Smurfit promotes your holistics development in leadership, literature, soft skills and not to forget the extremely diverse and multi-cultural dynamic in your classrooms."

"I'm genuinely grateful to have experienced the high quality of teaching at UCD Smurfit School while pursuing the MSc in Digital Innovation. I truly appreciated the course's interdisciplinary character that asks students to assess innovations and their impact on business and society from different perspectives. Being aware of the complexities of technological change helps me a lot in my new role as a digital strategy consultant. In addition to this, the collaborative culture shaped by supportive and inspiring people makes Smurfit an excellent place to study, one I can highly recommend to everyone."

"It was a privilege for me to pursue my Masters at the prestigious UCD Smurfit School. My time at UCD Smurfit School not only exposed me to the quality and expertise of the faculty, but to an internationally diverse learning environment.  The structure of the course met my expectations and complemented my existing engineering undergraduate degree.  The lecturers and other staff at UCD Smurfit School were friendly and helpful and made the transition to studying abroad in a new country a wonderful experience. I would recommend UCD Smurfit School for a transformational experience and a great study abroad choice for students."

"The Smufit MBA not only changed my perspectives on business, but also on myself as a person.  Through the classroom interactions and PPD programme I learned about team and group dynamics and the personality types that drive people to interact the way they do.  More importantly, I learned how I fit in those dynamics.  To me, this was invaluable information as the people part of doing business is often the most important."

"I chose to study at UCD Smurfit School, as the course curriculum offered a hands-on learning approach through practical applications of theories taught in class. Also, the opportunity to do live projects with renowned companies provide to be an invaluable experience."

"I am truly grateful to have been a student at UCD Smurfit School and to have gained such valuable experience while studying Human Resource Management. My course enabled me to acquire an all encompassing foundation in Human Resource Management and to quickly understand various HR structures. Moreover, small classes, excellent lecturers and a great learning environment all added to the unique experience I had while studying at UCD Smurfit School.  I can genuinely recommend this excellent School and especially the MSc in Human Resource Management course."

"This course is a unique combination of modules covering business fundamentals along with extensive coverage of trends and developments in the ICT industry. It definitely helps individuals to develop outlook and knowledge to strategise, manage and deliver transformation and innovation in an ever-changing digital landscape."

"I chose to study at UCD Smurfit School due its great reputation and strong network base with a wide variety of companies across Ireland."

"I am now an Account Manager at Qsoft Vietnam, a software outsourcing company in Vietnam with 100+ employees. Originally I graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science with a strong technical background. I have acquired business knowledge, communication skills, international experience and a business network throughout my studies at UCD Smurfit School on the MSc iBusiness - Innovation through ICT course. With the knowledge, experience and skills I have gained, I am doing very well in fulfilling my responsibility as an account manager. I got my new job only one month after coming back to Vietnam. Without the opportunity that UCD Smurfit School gave me, I would not be able to achieve this. UCD Smurfit School was the best experience for me. Friendly classmates, eminent professors, kind-hearted staff, an intimate campus and a beautiful apartment, all contributed to my dream and remain indelible in my memory."

"Having graduated from a University in Moscow, I immediately started researching MSc courses offered by graduate business schools across various countries. The MSc in Finance at UCD Smurfit School matched my interests in the financial domain perfectly. The course was even more comprehensive and enjoyable than I expected. The academic and consulting experience of the faculty provided a world class learning environment. I would highly recommend the course to all those who are interested in financial markets and would like to pursue a career in investments."

"I heard about UCD Smurfit School from some UCD Smurfit School alumni in my country, Vietnam. Besides its international recognition as one of 100 leading business schools in the world, I also chose to study in this school because of its reputation for a dynamic international studying environment and prestigious lecturers.  Studying at this university has been rewarding and I am proud to have graduated from here. The core modules of the course offered me a solid foundation in different aspects of marketing management such as strategic planning, marketing communications planning and marketing research, while optional modules facilitated more in-depth study of my main interest area of brand management.  The knowledge I have gained from this course allows me to undertake marketing planning tasks more efficiently in my current position. Moreover, the variety of marketing projects that I had to take on during the course equipped me with a wide range of hands-on and practical experience, which will be very useful for my current role as a marketing assistant and my career as a brand manager in the future. Finally, being immersed in an internationally diverse studying environment with students from different cultures was a great personal and professional experience for me. My social life is enriched with many international friendships from my class. Also, the exposure to various mind-sets and viewpoints during the course still helps to facilitate my adaptation into the multi-cultural working environment of my company, and improve my skills in dealing with international partners.  Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed studying for a marketing degree and look fondly upon my time at UCD Smurfit School. I highly recommend this course to anyone wishing to benefit from a wellrounded student life with exceptional courses, excellent lecturers, and a uniquely diverse academic and social environment."

"One year studying at UCD Smurfit School was the most amazing year of my life. The excellent academic environment makes students feel comfortable to enhance their knowledge, skills and personalities. I had opportunities to be actively involved in not only the lectures, but also dynamic cultural and sport activities during the school year. The course undeniably enabled me to have a comprehensive approach to problems at work and more assurance to accomplish my professional goals. I would recommend the MSc Strategic Management & Planning course and UCD Smurfit School."

"It was a privilege for me to secure admission to pursue an MSc in Management with adequate financial assistance (MSc Regional Merit Scholarship) at UCD Smurfit School. I am extremely delighted that I got a chance to study with highly motivated and industrious graduate students from different backgrounds and cultures in an ideal mini-international-business world. The eminent faculty and the emphasis placed on general management orientation and rigorous research methodologies certainly brought out the best in me, which helped me to achieve outstanding scholastic records. Recently, I have secured a job with Ernst and Young as a Financial Assurance Associate and will be doing ACA along with this, which will take me to the next level of professional qualification. I certainly recommend UCD Smurfit School to any aspiring graduate based on the breadth and depth of the courses coupled with a stimulating research environment it will be the right mix for seminal work and pioneering business studies."

"The CEMS MIM at UCD Smurfit School has been an intensive and valuable experience on both a personal and professional level. I was very much able to appreciate the benefits that the course offered - a group of like-minded and ambitious students from all over the world created a culture of mutual reinforcement and openmindedness.  The environment was challenging and demanded engagement in academic business topics, internships and practical business projects. Professional skill development such as presentation skills and negotiation skills were also part of a steep learning curve. The latter was one factor in my decision to found my company, Coindrum, which quickly proceeded to receive angel investment by a major industry player."

Tell us a bit about your education and early career

I was born and brought up in New Delhi. After graduating with a degree in mass communication and journalism from Delhi University I got my first job with CNN on its brand team.

I then moved on to the Times of India, the third largest English-language newspaper in the world. I worked on some very exciting mass communication type projects there, including Teach India and we secured some great partnerships to help fund the programme and build the brand.

I also spent a couple of years with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), again in the corporate communications team, where I was responsible for driving brand specific fundraising initiatives. One of the biggest projects I was involved in was the Save the Tiger campaign.

I got to a stage where I felt I’d done some really cool stuff in India but my CV was missing overseas experience. I also wanted to take a pause and go back to education. So I started to explore MBAs abroad and prepare for my GMAT. I decided on UCD Smurfit School because it offers a one-year programme and the visa process is very friendly for international students. Also, it’s one of the leading business schools globally and definitely number one in Ireland.

What was the MBA experience like for you?

I arrived in Dublin just over five years ago to begin what was nothing short of an unbelievably exciting journey. The year is packed with stuff to do, is incredibly busy and really pushes you out of your comfort zone. We were 48 students and 17 different nationalities but with similar goals and aspirations in life and there was really good camaraderie.

One of the most stimulating elements for me was meeting some really successful leaders through the alumni network, careers events and societies. I was co-chair of the Thought Leadership Club and even got the chance to interview Michael Smurfit and Joe Schmidt – the highlight of my MBA!

There were also many challenges and times when I questioned whether I’d made the right decision – if I’d get a job at the end of the year and adjust to this new lifestyle. It was a very interesting journey of self-discovery and I think if I hadn’t done it I would have regretted it. And I think I’ve come out as a better person – the MBA helps you to reach your career aspirations but also helps define you and firm you up as a person.

During my MBA I interned with Zurich Insurance – I’d met them through the Thought Leadership Club. So I was able to think about and apply the frameworks I was learning in a business context. Getting that real-time, live exposure to all the theories we were learning was so good for me and was a great help in building my CV.

How has your career progressed since completing your MBA?

Towards the end of the programme, I was actively networking, which I think is a very important part of life today. I met some of the kindest people, who opened doors, introduced me to more people, did interviews with me and gave me training and insights.

Things started happening on the back of that. I got a job with 3M as product marketing manager in its energy and electronics division. That role was a very good building block and gave me the opportunity to apply learnings from the MBA.

During that time I met my husband – we married two years ago and now we have a house so I guess I’m going to be here for a bit longer.

After a couple of years with 3M I knew if I wanted to meet my career aspirations I would have to move from hardware to the software space. I had the frameworks and transferable skills – my approach is always to challenge and question before making strategic decisions and that’s relevant wherever you are.

I moved to Sage nearly three years ago as product marketing manager for a product the company had just launched. After six months, I was settled in, getting very good exposure, building relationships and loving it. I was on my honeymoon in Bali when I got the news that the product had been discontinued.

I wasn’t sure if I’d have a job when I got back but I was moved to work on another product Sage had acquired from Silicon Valley that it was launching into the UK. I was responsible for the entire go-to-market strategy and giving this US product a local flavour. The entire year and a half I worked on that was a massive learning curve and very interesting and rewarding.

Most recently I was promoted internally to global product marketing director at Sage. The new role started on 4 January so it’s still all very new. I’m really excited about it all – new year, new role and a new challenge.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I look up to a few people in Sage who are really good at leading their teams and have tried to adopt some of their traits into my approach.

To me, there are three elements to leadership. Number one is being logical – it’s important to be very clear about what we want to do and why and to communicate that to the team.

Second is being authentic. It’s really important to have diversity in discussions and to be able to share your views – I encourage my team to do that and my managers and leaders have always encouraged me to do this. That really adds value to the quality of the work you do.

The last element is having empathy. You have to have the flexibility to trust people and allow them to do things in their preferred way. Particularly when people are working from home, they will do things at a pace that suits them and you have to respect that.

What motivates you?

I’m definitely motivated by reward. And that reward can be many things – it could be solving a problem for a customer, helping to drive business, a promotion at the end of the project or other incentives. I need to know what we’re going to get at the end of the piece of work we’re doing. Without that clarity I don’t know what the purpose is of me doing what I’m doing.

The journey itself and what that looks like also motivates me. You have to have fun and enjoy yourself along the way.

It’s really a mix of both but it starts with reward for me and then I am interested to know what the journey looks like, who is involved and if it’s going to be a healthy collaboration.

Who or what has influenced or inspired you?

Two people in particular in the last couple of years have played a critical part in helping me and when I’m in doubt about something I always go to them.

I was fortunate enough to meet Nick, a senior executive at Sage, who is so approachable and full of empathy. He gives me the best advice. He never makes decisions for me but shows me the alternatives and allows me to think through which one is best.

He’s also great at introducing people to each other. That gets the creative juices flowing – we know because we’re meeting through him that we’re probably similar or want the same things. He’s so good at creating networks and they’re so valuable, especially during the lockdown. He is a very good champion for people he truly believes in. And that’s what I do for my team and for people who are my mentees. I’ve learned so much from him that I want to give back in the form of mentorship to others.

The other person is my sister in law, Áine. She’s really successful and also so positive. I’ve seen her in tough situations but always with an amazing smile. I’ve never heard her say bad things about people. She’s already experienced many of the things I’m going through in my career so I go to her for advice a lot. She gives me the management perspective on things. We work in different organisations in the same building. I obviously know her personally but I get to see her indirectly in a professional capacity. I can see that her team loves her and I just love the aura she carries.

Another person who has had a big influence is my mum. When I was little and going to dance classes quite far away she learnt to drive so she could take me there. I love that –the idea of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to give the best to the people who matter.

What has been your biggest achievement so far?

That would definitely be the MBA. I took it as a challenge and there was quite a lot of preparation with the GMAT and the interview process and then risk too – the fees and leaving the country, my friends and family and everything that was going alright for me.

If I hadn’t taken that chance I wouldn’t have become a much happier person. I’ve seen a transition in myself and I’ve found my husband so both professionally and personally I’ve achieved a lot more in life because of the risk I took.

What is your advice for success?

Don’t be hard on yourself, especially now. At the moment, many of us are stuck in our homes and the only interaction we have is with our immediate family and work colleagues. The line between work and personal life is blurring. Enjoy your work but be kind to yourself and to each other at home as well.

If you’re doing your MBA this year, try to make the most of doing any fun things that are happening like virtual catch-ups. It’s not ideal but try to make the most of it.

In general, I’d also say think before you commit yourself to doing anything. Then it will be a lot easier once you’re in it.

Insight Track
What is your fondest memory from your time in UCD Smurfit?

Visiting Mandela House, Soweto in South Africa. It was a very humbling experience.

How important is your UCD alumni network to you?

This is my first extended family in Ireland. Amazing support system – you know they are for you when you need them.

What are your main interests outside work?

Reading and listening to podcasts, and I dabbled in gardening last summer like many.

What piece of technology can you not live without?

My mobile phone. Especially WhatsApp – great way to keep in touch with family afar.

What’s your favourite book?

There are so many amazing books. I’m currently reading The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak. I am meandering through beautiful Ottoman monuments and lives.

What is your favourite place in the world to visit and why?

Take me to any wildlife reserve parks and sanctuaries. There is so much I learn from nature. It gives amazing perspective. Also an opportunity to unlearn and let go of lifestyle burdens we carry.

Where is home and why?

Home is definitely Dublin. I wish I could have my parents and best friends with me here all the time too.

What charities or causes are closest to your heart?

I volunteer with Seal Rescue Ireland five days a year through Sage Foundation. I love wildlife and seal pups are the cutest!

January 2021

Tell us about your background and your motivation for undertaking the UCD Smurfit MBA
I’m a mechanical engineer by qualification. When I graduated from Punjab Engineering College in 1994, I joined Maruti Suzuki, the largest automotive company in India. I worked there for seven years before moving to Ireland and UCD Smurfit School to pursue a full-time MBA programme.

Because I had already been working for a few years and was going to be taking study leave from Maruti I didn’t want to do a long MBA programme, so the one-year duration really worked for me. I had decided on Europe because there were more options for one-year programmes and the fees seemed manageable. I ended up getting a scholarship from UCD so my decision was easy.

After my MBA, I returned to India and went back to Maruti for a couple of years before joining Infosys in 2004. Then I joined Oracle where I was focused solely on the Indian market. I started off as a principal consultant and then became director of sales consulting. In 2018 I joined SAP as part of the intelligent spend management team. We help our customers manage their procurement spend and improve bottom line saving and governance. It’s been a fabulous journey thus far with huge opportunity for learning as well as making an impact on customer organisations by moving them to cloud solutions.

How would you describe your leadership style?
Because I started out in manufacturing and in a company that was a joint venture with Suzuki I think my leadership style is influenced by many of the Japanese techniques. One of these is the idea of managing by walking around – making decisions based on actual situations. That approach was engrained in me. It’s really about looking at brass tacks and not just staying on the surface. But you have to bring yourself out of it quickly so you don’t miss the big picture.

I also like encouraging and collaborating within my team rather than just directing people.

What motivates you?
The fundamental thing that motivates me is customer success. No matter if my customer is internal or external, if I can help them to be successful and they are happy, that for me is the biggest motivation in my current role.

How has your degree benefited your career and/or personal life?
My time at Smurfit School gave me a global perspective and experience. This has certainly helped me in navigating the professional world, which is now without boundaries and works virtually.

What is your fondest memory from your time in UCD Smurfit School?
People refer to the MBA as Marriage Breaking Association due to strenuous schedules. But contrary to that I came back to India for my wedding during the first term preparatory holidays. My wife joined me in Dublin after the exam. We had a phenomenal stay in Ireland for the remaining terms. There was big fun with some of the class parties, especially the customary visit to the pub after Thursday’s corporate finance class.

How important is your UCD alumni network to you?
I think it’s very important. Unfortunately, I have not been able to actively engage with the alumni as much as I would have liked to. But with so many social media platforms this should be easier for the next generation.

What has been your biggest achievement?
I came from a rural village in India, did my studies through English and ended up doing an MBA in UCD Smurfit School and having professional success as well. To me that has been a phenomenal journey and a big achievement. There’s still a lot more to go and bigger dreams but I’m on that journey.

Learn more about our MBA Programmes here

Tell us about your educational and career background

Because of my cousin Kelsey, my background has been always focused around disability and inclusion. As a high school student in West Hartford, Connecticut I founded a company – Unified Theater – that delivered performing arts programmes in schools for young people with and without disabilities. I was also heavily involved in theatre and the arts personally and started college in New York thinking I was going to do the professional theatre track. I quickly realised I didn’t want to pursue that professionally and that what I enjoyed most about theatre was the community element and the way it brought people together.

So, I ended up moving to the University of Virginia, where I did a self-designed major in service, community and social policy. I was really focused on the intersection of volunteerism, social services and political organisation. After that I worked professionally for five years on Unified Theater, expanding its reach to over 100 schools in the country and building up to a team of six people. Unified Theater has since been acquired by Kids Included Together and continues to run programmes in schools.

As I left Unified Theater, I began to realise people like me were investing tonnes of time and effort and resources into supporting young people with disabilities but that we don’t invest the same amount when they became adults. And so I went to graduate school quite explicitly to focus on housing for people with disabilities and how to meet those needs.

Just before starting my public policy degree at Harvard I travelled to Ireland for the first time. I have Irish heritage and had always wanted to go. I spent four incredible weeks in Ireland and fell very much in love with a lot of the culture and community that makes Ireland what it is.

It was interesting because when I was doing disability inclusion from a policy perspective at Harvard I realised quite quickly that a lot of finance and business operations went into housing development. I decided I wanted to do a business degree and learned about the Mitchell Scholar programme. I saw it as a wonderful opportunity to get my MBA, get back to Ireland and also go back to a community where there is so much about neighbours looking after neighbours.

The MBA programme at UCD was beneficial in a few ways. Because I already knew what I was going to be doing afterwards I had opportunities throughout the programme to the coursework and focus on projects that specifically applied to The Kelsey. In one of our business model analysis classes, I was able to do the final project on tinkering with our business strategy and input output model. My final capstone project with our strategy professor was the full business plan for The Kelsey.

Tell us about The Kelsey and your role there

The Kelsey is a non-profit with the mission of accelerating and advocating for housing that is inclusive of people with disability of all incomes. We are building houses within communities that are a mix of housing for adults with disabilities, affordable housing and middle income housing all mixed in one community development. One of our huge needs and desires is not to isolate or segregate based on people’s income or ability. In parallel to building our housing communities and raising the money to do that, we also advance policy advocacy and community organising and awareness that support those goals.

I started The Kelsey in San Francisco. When I was in Harvard I began laying the groundwork there and then I was travelling back and forth between Dublin and San Francisco when I was doing my MBA. I moved out here full time in the summer of 2017 after finishing my programme and bootstrapped for the first six months. We closed our first round of seed funding from the Chan Zuckerberg initiative in March 2018 and since then I’m proud to say we have 240-plus homes in our pipeline with projects in San Jose and San Francisco and we've raised and unlocked over $18m of funding and will get close to $60m by the end of this year (2020) between our philanthropic funding, private lending and public subsidies. We're also advancing some exciting policy initiatives.

I'm the founder and CEO and then we have a team of five. I'm pretty proud to say that we are a very lean team and look at maximising the impact by pretty focused operations and good strategic partnerships.

Was there a defining moment that shaped what you're doing now?

For me the person who has shaped almost everything I do now is my cousin Kelsey, who had multiple significant disabilities. Kelsey and I were the same age and came from the same type of family and had similar things we loved to do, yet the opportunities that were available to me and the opportunities that were available to her were not equal. And so, for my whole life that lens of disability and inclusion has been central and fundamental to everything I do.

What is your leadership style?

I would first describe my leadership and approach to work in general as aspirational, supporting my team to look for what is possible and always striving towards that aspiration versus inspiration. Inspiration is sometimes touchy-feely and looking at something in the past. Aspirational is saying, I see something bigger that is possible. It sometimes feels slightly out of reach but is something we can all drive towards.

When I jump on opportunities they’re always with those aspirational goals in mind and not getting overly mucked up in and around what people say. Affordable housing and disability inclusion are perhaps two of the areas where people are quick to talk about all the barriers that exist. Focusing our work on what is possible, we can start to push aside the pre-existing assumptions of where things can’t happen. That has been pretty central to how I approach our organisation and how I work on our team.

What has been your biggest achievement?

Our project in San Jose is tracking to be both a landmark inclusive housing project and one of the fastest developed affordable housing communities we’ve seen in our region. A lot of that is because we focused on achieving some early wins and lining up opportunities in sequence: acquiring a really amazing site, locking down $11m in city funding very early after acquisition and then closing $5.3m in funding with Google at the end of last year.

In 18 months, we went from having this idea and a passionate community of over 300 residents in our region saying we need this type of housing to now having a site, having a lot of our early funding lined up, and a plan and the right partners to achieve on that. But, I think I’ll really feel I’ve achieved something when people move into that building.

What is most important piece of advice you’ve received or would give?

One piece of advice I was given and continue to think about is to hire really good people and to pick them based on their skills, their smarts and their passion for your mission and not necessarily for a check box of items on a job description. Hiring people who can do a lot of things and want to do things for the mission you’ve lined out has been measurably impactful in allowing us achieve our goals at The Kelsey so far.

The leaders I really admire from a business standpoint and from a social and community standpoint are people who take big steps. If you’re not going to do it big and try to achieve what you set out to achieve, why do it? Don’t be measured and small in how you approach what you can do. I take that from my religious views – we’re put on this earth to do great things and it’s your job to jump into those things and take risk and put yourself out there to do them.

It’s such a cliché, but, go big or go home. We could have built three units of housing in a small community at The Kelsey but that’s not what we set out to do. We’re trying to build a model that can be scalable. It wasn’t really worth trying to move the needle if we couldn’t move it a way that would actually create sustained impact for people and communities.

How important is ongoing learning to you?

As someone who has recently invested in two graduate degrees, formal ongoing learning and continued education is something I obviously value. I’m also always looking at what people are doing in very unrelated businesses. I’m always trying to learn from entrepreneurs who I think have built very good businesses or people who have changed social programmes or created scaled impact to see how I can apply what they’ve done to The Kelsey or to my own style as a leader.

Going forward, what are your aspirations?

Since I’ve started working in disability inclusive housing I feel with such certainty that I will always be doing work related to this issue. Obviously my immediate goals and foreseeable future will be directly as part of The Kelsey and bringing this organisation to scale and executing on our first communities. This organisation will give me plenty of work and fun and learning and opportunity that has an impact for many years to come.

I think my ultimate goal is to create funding sources and policy that allow disability and inclusive and mixed income housing to be the norm in cities across our country. It’s possible to create communities where all people of all types and all abilities and incomes can thrive and that’s the work I want to be doing for years to come.

"The UCD Smurfit School MBA gave me the opportunity to be part of an experienced cohort of classmates. The UCD Smurfit School MBA has an international focus that is apparent from a number of aspects of the course – the international trip to an emerging markets country and more than 50% of the class being from outside Ireland. The MBA also gave me confidence to be part of MBA clubs and to organise and lead events in the Dublin region. The MBA experience has certainly helped me broaden my horizons both in terms of thought process and career opportunities."

"The UCD Smurfit School MBA was a unique and unforgettable experience. After ten years working in France, I wanted to open new perspectives in my career in terms of management skills, team work and culture. I appreciated the diversity of the  participants, their backgrounds and the wealth of our discussions.  The quality and human size of the course also helped me to change my mind-set and think more broadly. In other words, I approach business more globally. Today, I feel better equipped for the future and see the UCD Smurfit School MBA as a long term valuable investment."

"My decision to pursue the double degree MSc in International Management and CEMS MiM at UCD Smurfit was driven by my intellectual curiosity and passion to immerse myself in international environments. Already during the admission process, the staff and faculty were extremely welcoming, and it became obvious that, to round off my academic career, a double Master’s at UCD would be exactly the challenge I was seeking. What I appreciated most, was the possibility to design the program based on my personal interests, not only through choosing from a broad range of courses but also through the various opportunities to get involved in the student community and gain international experience at one of the 34 CEMS partner universities. A love for collaboration and personal growth are two things, I continue to carry forward from my time at UCD and which help me in my professional career to this day."

"I had both a great academic and personal experience at UCD Smurfit School as a Marketing Masters student. The quality of the student experience is really high thanks to the teaching excellence, the facilities, and especially the people. As a student, you  an feel there is a genuine global follow-up of your experience from the teachers and the Smurfit staff. The MSc in Marketing at UCD Smurfit School is a comprehensive course as it enables you to embrace the main marketing theoretical principles and to  apply them through real-life case studies and operations-driven projects. This complete Master’s course enabled me to step into the business world with confidence, with the required knowledge and skills."

"I am proud to be an alumnus of UCD Smurfit School as I really enjoyed my time at the School on the MSc International Business course. Apart from a providing me with a strong grounding in international business, the course was enhanced through the opportunity to apply what I had learned by taking part in a number of real-life projects with Irish companies. I acquired valuable knowledge and business experience on the programme.  It was also a pleasure to meet and interact with students from many different countries.  I built a network of international contacts who now enrich my career and help me pursue my professional and personal goals.  After graduation, I joined Capgemini Consulting as Senior Consultant for the German practice. In my daily work, I can build upon the skills and experience I gained at UCD Smurfit School. I would definitely recommend UCD Smurfit School to anyone pursuing a career in an international context."