Herman Errico discusses how the MBA powered the leadership engine for Blendgate — a new type of Marketplace for B2B technology consulting services.

“The Smurfit MBA is a life changing experience, both from a personal and professional perspective,” said Herman Errico, current Executive MBA candidate at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. “The MBA is the fuel for the leadership engine.”

Herman described how he enhanced his skills with group work, his approach to complex problems and his ability to both constructively criticize a perspective and refine his  assertiveness when defending his own perspective. 

“During the MBA you are constantly pushed to expand your learning horizons, reflect before and after any learning experience and learn how to deliver high quality content, while working full time.”

The UCD Smurfit School MBA is one of the oldest in Europe and has been consistently ranked among the world’s best for over 20 years. In addition, UCD Smurfit School is one of an elite group of schools worldwide to hold the ‘triple crown’ of accreditation from the three centres of business and academic excellence,  EQUIS (Europe), AACSB (US) and AMBA (UK). 

Herman began his MBA while working full time as a Manager at EY. Shortly after beginning the programme, he secured a senior manager role which he attributed to the learnings from lectures and group projects. On average, UCD Smurfit School MBA alumni see a 74% growth in earnings within three years after graduating. 

But Herman found that the MBA was empowering him beyond his current career and accelerated his path to entrepreneurship as he learned how to design, create and manage a business. 

“I saw all the material that I could build and gather as a useful reference or sounding board for the future challenges that I would face,” the Dun Laoghaire native explained. “Some may think that building a business comes from practical experience, which is true, however, the pace, effectiveness and quality at which you are able to build a business after an MBA are unmatchable. I would have not been in a position to build and launch a technology company in a short timeframe without the MBA.” 

In 2023, Errico founded Blendgate– a marketplace that makes it easier to procure and manage B2B technology consulting services for small and medium businesses. He describes that the company is not “yet another marketplace”, but a blend between a marketplace and a professional network with a SaaS mode which they call a  Market Network.

“I started Blendgate because of the drive to solve some of the most compelling challenges of the technology consulting industry,” said Errico. “Buyers of consulting services are spending on average 4 to 6 weeks to procure a service, with no comparable prices and no verifiable experience of the consultants that are going to deliver their project.”

“On the other side, consulting firms are struggling with consultants’ utilization, getting constant flow of projects and they lack reliable data on their competitors. All these challenges make the consulting industry a highly unstructured, non-balanced and low trust environment, which makes it the perfect space for a marketplace to rebalance the market and solve some of those pressing challenges.”

Herman describes how the design and thought process of Blendgate came during MBA lectures and while writing papers and reflection notes. “Because the vast majority of the learnings are tangible and immediately applicable to real life scenarios, especially when it comes to organizational case studies, the transition from learnings to reality was quite natural.”

The programme gave him deep knowledge of business and leadership processes, but as a tech entrepreneur, Herman found certain modules directly contributed to the development of his business.  

“Starting with the incredible strategy lectures of Assistant Professor Brian McGrath and Associate Professor Ciaran Heavey, both explored the core principles of strategy design and execution. Designing and executing a strategy will delineate the difference between success and failure of your business.”

“On the financial side, with the exceptional Professor Niamh Brennan, Associate Professor Paul Ryan and the late Dr Christoph Drechsler, we learned how the finances and managerial accounting of a business are core to the toolkit of a successful entrepreneur.”

“Additionally, the learnings from marketing, digital strategy and analytics, which are a stepstone of a successful organization, were delivered by the inspiring Assistant Professor Julie Schiro. Ultimately, the learning from the entrepreneurship lecture with Assistant Professor Orla Byrne was the cherry on top of the cake to finalize the learning experience.”

Recently, Herman consulted his financial reporting material from a previous module while developing the business plan for Blendgate and developed the company’s projected financial statement following the corporate finance lectures. 

“I would recommend the MBA to someone who has at least five years of work experience, as they will be in a position to better appreciate the challenges and struggles of a manager,” said Herman to those considering the pursuit of an MBA. “I would also say don’t rush it, as the MBA is a learning experience that is better done before being ready to go to the next step in your career from manager to leader.”

“With the MBA you will be able to become a better and more prepared leader,” concluded Herman.

Christina Carey Dunleavy has spent much of her career in the entertainment industry. She currently leads Disney CreativeWorks, a branded content studio and consultancy, as well as multicultural and inclusive marketing for Disney Advertising.

"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."

As someone who has always been interested in innovative technologies and new ways of doing things, Prag Sharma got involved in data analytics and artificial intelligence while still in college. After spending several years in post graduate research, the world of consultancy and in UCD-based Research Centres, he is now Global Head of Artificial Intelligence at Citi.

Tell us about your education and early career

I was born in New Delhi, India but grew up and went to school in a few different countries including Dubai, Egypt and Ireland. This was because my father was a career diplomat with the Indian Foreign Services. We moved to Ireland in 1995, which coincided with my Leaving Cert year. I was suddenly faced with James Joyce and Patrick Kavanagh, whom I thoroughly enjoyed (after a fashion).

I then went to UCD to do Electronic Engineering in 1996. I followed that up with a PhD in Computer Vision. Some of my longest lasting friendships are from my time in UCD, eight years in a row. From there, I moved into the world of business technology consulting and spent over four years at Accenture in various roles.

In 2009, I was tempted back to academia – and UCD – and joined Clique, an innovative Science Foundation Ireland-funded research group as Programme Manager. The group focused on analysing big data using graph and network analytics approaches. After four years there, I was appointed Data Analytics Business Development Manager at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics which was being set up at the time and was also based in Belfield. At the time, centre was one of the biggest public-private partnership in the emerging space of data analytics and artificial intelligence anywhere in the world.

During my time back in UCD, I met a great number of interesting and talented people, with some of whom I co-founded start-ups. At every unsuccessful attempt to become a millionaire,

I learnt a huge amount. One prominent example was EgoNav Analytics, which developed a system for identifying and highlighting real-time fraudulent behaviour in large customer datasets using graph and network analytics approaches. The company got funding from Enterprise Ireland, and we built out a product to take to various clients. Ultimately, we were unsuccessful in scaling the start-up. But we learned some very important lessons, including the fact that the sales cycles for large financial institutional clients can be a couple of years. If you don’t anticipate that, you’re likely to run out of money before you end up selling the product or service. We worked on it for around two and half years but because of the lack of sales didn’t progress the company. Nonetheless, it was a very valuable experience and an enjoyable time too. I had a very talented co-founder, and we still keep in touch.

After six years in UCD, I felt it was time for a change. The corporate world was calling me again and there were some exciting opportunities in the now mature artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) space as people were starting to recognise their value. So, I took a role managing AI/ML activities in Deloitte. There was a lot of interest in blockchain from clients at the time and I got involved in that as well, including one of the first proof of concepts in blockchain in Ireland. This led to the setting up of a blockchain centre of excellence in Deloitte, which is still here in Ireland today.

Within the year, an even bigger opportunity arose for me with Citigroup. Citi is a truly global bank – it has a physical presence in over 100 countries and does business in more than 160 countries. It has huge resources to really make things happen, and an amazing client base.

I joined in September 2016 as Senior Vice President, Citi Innovation Labs, leading the emerging technologies group which focuses on building innovative products/services for large institutional clients, developing technologies powered by AI/ML and blockchain.

What is your current role?

At the beginning of 2021, I was appointed Global Head of Citigroup’s Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence (AI CoE). We are a one-stop shop for AI-related activities across Citigroup. Our role is to ensure that Citi harnesses the power of AI to best serve its customers and staff. We operate right across the spectrum of all Citi’s businesses. It is a really exciting role with the potential to make a global impact. I enjoy this aspect of the job tremendously.

What motivates you?

What I’m doing is ultimately very innovative. Looking back at my career and studies I’ve always had an interest in how to do things differently. Most products and services that we use today can be improved. Figuring out how is what motivates me. That’s why I did engineering in the first place and why I progressed to do a PhD, why I did an MBA, why I undertook technology consulting and ultimately why I went back to UCD to work in an innovative culture with a group of specialists. And now it’s about being a part of how Citi does things differently.

What are your main influences or inspirations?

There’s inspiration all around at the moment. Technology in the last few years seems to have accelerated the pace of innovation and has become the primary driver in creating truly novel solutions. Spectacular, technology-driven innovation is happening all around us, from self-driving cars to space exploration. Underlying that is this use of data, technology and more generally, just digitisation. Artificial intelligence alone has made such big leaps in the last few years, that it’s starting to compete with human intelligence in some areas, such as vision. Having said that, we are still a few Nobel prizes away from general intelligence, ie the ability for computers to do things we as humans can do effortlessly, such as wonder at our own existence. It’s a very exciting time to be involved in this stuff. That inspires me.

How would you describe your leadership style?

My leadership style could be described as open and honest, at least that’s how I see myself. I always want to make sure I understand the other person’s perspective. It is a lack of understanding of where the other person is coming from that often causes misunderstanding and subsequent issues.

I’m generally very easy to talk to. More conservative types may think I overshare, but I believe being forthcoming opens people up to say what they think. One thing I don’t like is if somebody’s not saying what they really want to say.

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has been associated with the quote: “We are never offended, and we are never hysterical”. I think that’s really good advice and a key component of my leadership style (sometimes).

How important is ongoing learning to you?

Since my MBA, there have been numerous online courses that have taken my interest. There is so much change in my area and so many new models and techniques that come out, literally on a daily basis, that just keeping up to speed with the pace of change is a full-time job. So, we need to continuously learn, efficiently.

I enjoy the challenge of learning and read a lot in my spare time. There is no shortage of excellent blogs, tutorials, courses, and e-books online. For example, I bought a Raspberry Pi a few years ago, attached it to a camera, used an open-source face detection algorithm that relies on a deep learning image processing algorithm (CNN) and trained it to recognise my daughter’s face using one-shot learning techniques. I got it working so I stuck it in a stuffed toy, a cat, with the cat’s nose doubling as a camera. Every time she passed the cat would detect her face and say: “Hi Maia, how are you doing?”. It was a fun experiment.

Roblox is a gaming platform that is very popular with young children and my kids play Roblox a lot with their friends (this is despite my best efforts to get them to do more physical activities). If you can’t beat them, join them. With this in mind, I learnt the underlying development language, Lua, for Roblox and made a game called ‘Zig Zag Zombies’ which is available today if you’d like to try it out and is completely free. Unfortunately, it didn’t make me the millions I was hoping for, but it was fun all the same and I learnt a new language. My kids thought I was cool (that lasted a few months) and my daughter has started learning Javascript.

What is your biggest achievement to date?

I believe, our biggest achievements should be the ones that give us the most joy.

My daughter and I wrote a book that is available on Amazon called The Dressing Gown Adventures. It is my ‘biggest’ (read, ‘most fun’) achievement because I worked with my daughter and we had a lot of fun writing it. It’s not going to win the Booker! The next book is with my son, if we ever get around to it.

On a more personal level, my biggest achievement was finding an amazing life partner! She is standing behind me as I write this, so I thought I should include her.

What is your advice for success?

Ireland is an amazing place to innovate. There are so many opportunities – between the funding available and the global talent in Ireland –to get involved. So, get involved. Some action items for your to-do list:

Get involved

It’s important to pursue what you want to do and not to look back with regret. I think we should just take our chances and go with it – don’t overthink it. This advice works better before

you make too many other commitments, but it is never too late.

Stay involved

I also think it’s important to remain open to new ideas. Don’t get comfortable and stuck in a routine. Try new things. For example, even though I don’t upload any images on Instagram or videos on Tiktok (you can thank me for that some other time), I do have an interest in these widely successful apps and often browse them to understand their success (and to keep an eye on what my kids may be seeing).

Be up-to-date

Read everything – especially views that don’t align with yours and on topics that have nothing to do with you. You’ll be amazed at how much you will learn. A quote that I live by is: “I am never satisfied that I have handled a subject properly till I have contradicted myself at least three times”.

What are your career or business aspirations going forward?

I look to identify opportunities to make an impact on a global scale, develop and build amazing products/services within the job I do today. Citi is such a large organisation that there is always the opportunity to learn something new and different if you are so inclined. There are more roles in Citi that I would love to do in the future.

Large organisations like Citi also offer opportunities to travel with work. I’ve spent the last 25 years in Ireland after travelling so much when I was younger. I met my wife and we stayed in Ireland. When we met, my wife was about to move to Spain and I was thinking of going back to India but we both stayed here. Now we have kids so it’s a little bit more difficult to travel but every year we have this conversation: “How about Australia or Singapore – the weather would be good – or maybe we could go to England and have a change of scene”. The good thing is that the opportunities in Citi are all over the world, so, who knows?

Insight Track

How has your degree benefited your career and/or personal life?

I have a bachelor’s in electronic engineering, a PhD in computer vision and an MBA, focusing on innovation. In every case, I have learnt a little more about the world around me and a little more about myself. I would love to study more. Next up is economics and philosophy (after retirement)

What is your fondest memory from your time in UCD Smurfit School?

We did a course on negotiations, a skill everyone needs, every day. I used to love those classes. Also, there were a number of ‘characters’, both lecturers and students, who were a lot of fun to hang out with. There was this one time…

How important is your UCD alumni network to you?

It’s great to keep in touch, catch up and find out how everyone is progressing. I also often get useful advice from my college mates, from my undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA cohorts.

What are your main interests outside work?

Reading – I love to read and would love to be a writer one day!

Tell us something most people don’t know about you

I enjoy eating (more than most people might think). I love to try different cuisines. I still enjoy playing video games (please don’t tell anyone).

What piece of technology can you not live without?

I think when push comes to shove, I could manage without any technology, but not without books to read.

What is your pet hate?

Two-faced people! There is no need.

Do you have a favourite writer or book?

There are so many:

Science fiction/fantasy: China Mieville, George RR Martin and Isaac Asimov
Historical fiction: William Dalrymple, Hilary Mantel, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, JG Farrell and Joseph O’Connor
History: The Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham (one of the best books I have ever read)
Philosophy: J Krishnamurthi

Do you have a favourite band or musician?

Eclectic: Tracy Chapman, Metallica, Boyzone!

What’s the last gig/play/film/exhibition you went to that you loved?

Pre-Covid! – I can’t remember that far.

What is your favourite dish to cook?

Chickpeas in curry (chana masala) – I think I have finally nailed it down (but it’s still nothing like when my mother makes it).

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

Anywhere nice and warm, to be honest (but I am not a beach person). I would love to go on a trip to some of the Pacific islands with my wife (minus the kids)!

Where is home and why?

Home is Dublin and New Delhi (in that order). I am man of the world, it’s difficult to nail me down.

Name three things on your bucket list

Travel to all countries I haven’t been to yet (that’s a tall order)
Write a book
Retire early (to complete the first two items on the list)

What charities or causes are closest to your heart?

Médecins Sans Frontières – Impartial Medical Aid (Doctors without Borders). I think they do amazing work.

March 2022

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.

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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.

My background and motivation for undertaking an MBA

After graduating from UCC in 2006 with a BSc in Finance, I trained to become a Chartered Accountant with PwC. I joined EirGen Pharma in 2011, progressed to Financial Controller and then Head of Finance.

I knew I needed to upgrade certain areas of my skillset and build my confidence and decided an MBA would be a good way to do this. I graduated with my MBA from UCD Smurfit School in 2015 and in 2018 I co-founded Shorla Pharma, a speciality pharmaceutical company developing innovative oncology drugs for women’s and children’s cancers.

Why I chose the UCD Smurfit MBA

Quite simply, I chose the Smurfit MBA because of the fantastic reputation it has; the only School in Ireland and one of a niche of Schools globally to hold the triple crown of accreditation. To me, that was a signal of quality from international, independent peers. It was a guarantee to me that I would receive a top quality, internationally recognised MBA.

Key lessons learned

The five most valuable lessons I learned during my MBA journey are:
1. Network- the connections are invaluable
2. Perspective- the power of balanced teams with different backgrounds, cultures, education and experiences
3. Experience- real life experience beats any credential
4. Self-reflection- there is no growth in your comfort zone
5. Prioritise- follow your passion in the pursuit of your purpose

Highlight of my MBA Experience

The fun we had on the international study trip to China!

How the Smurfit MBA has supported my career development

I was motivated to do something meaningful and purposeful; to have a wider impact and create positive change and I’ve always had an appetite for risk.
I was lacking confidence, skills and the network, and the MBA gave me all of those things in abundance so that I could embark on the entrepreneurial journey self-assured.

How an Executive MBA was the catalyst for a pharma start-up

Read Sharon's interview with the Financial Times here.

Learn more about our MBA Programmes here

Could you tell us what prompted you to study at UCD Smurfit School?
During my time in St. James's Hospital I had some amazing mentors. I was working as a clinical pharmacist but had the opportunity to develop a prescribing app at a time when this was relatively new in Ireland. The project combined with my experience in the NHS prompted me to think about transitioning into a management role away from the patient facing environment. The CEO at the time suggested that an MBA from Smurfit would provide me with the skills and confidence to make the transition and the rest is history!

You completed the Executive MBA offering from Smurfit — how do you think this flexible option might assist women in particular?
When I completed the MBA, I took the Midweek Executive option. I did not have children. Three children later and I have a new found respect for my classmates who completed the course with children added into the mix.

I think alternatives such as mid-week or modular options will really increase flexibility for all busy people whether they are parents or carers, soon to be parents or sports enthusiasts for that matter! All these additional commitments can be a barrier to embarking on an MBA but the reality is the MBA is so enriching it will ultimately improve your ability to multitask and give you the confidence to take on more challenges than you ever thought were possible.

You’re currently General Manager at St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network — how do you think the Executive MBA assisted you in getting there?
For me, aside from providing me with a solid knowledge base in the core areas of management, the MBA was invaluable in teaching me about teamwork. The course forced me to learn how to depend on other team members with expertise outside of my own. That was not always a comfortable experience but it resulted in a lot of personal growth. I could not manage an organisation on the scale of St. Luke's without fully understanding what it means to be a team player.

Did you know that that was where you wanted to get to in your career before or during the time of the MBA?
I knew I wanted to step up into a management role at some point. Working with such a range of professionals on the course made me think about broader healthcare management roles. And importantly, my experience on the course gave me the confidence to believe I could step up into the bigger roles and push outside of my pharmacy comfort zone.

Did the MBA help in showing you career paths and opportunities that may have not occurred to you at the time?
Yes, I never dreamed I could manage a team of porters, nurses, or accountants for that matter but the MBA showed me that I could bring something useful to the table when dealing with all kinds of staff and team members.

Learn more about our MBA Programmes here

Keen to use her scientific background to work in an area with impact in the short term, Eimear Cotter moved from her early role as a research scientist to consultancy and then into public service, where she is now head of low carbon technologies in the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and focused on providing policy makers with the best possible advice, analysis and data.

Tell us about your education and early career

Initially I studied sciences at Trinity, specialising in chemistry in the last two years. I loved my time there so much that I went straight into a PhD in atmospheric chemistry, which I did in Oxford University. Again, I had a wonderful time there. 

After that, I spent two years working for the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge as a research scientist. That was a really supportive, mission-orientated organisation and I particularly enjoyed the outdoorsy attitude to life among all the people working there.

I realised then that I wanted to be involved in an area where my work had more immediate results. As a research scientist you’re feeding into a larger good, but the impact comes on a more long-term basis.

Looking to where I could have impact in the short-term I moved into consultancy, working for Arthur D Little, again in Cambridge. And I moved on through a couple of other jobs before returning to Dublin in 2005 when I joined the Department of Transport as a sustainability adviser.

That was a great role that gave me an insight into how the civil service works and allowed me to combine my analytical skills with real-life work in terms of helping to inform policy.

After a couple of years I moved to the Environmental Protection Agency where I spent just under nine years, mainly focused on climate change, leading on compiling national statistics for Ireland and implementing the EU emissions trading scheme.

Why did you decide to do an MBA?

With my science degree and PhD, I could see I was being pigeonholed as a scientific, technical person. I wanted – and knew I needed – to broaden my skills and my knowledge. My motivation was to get a whole new perspective. And I got that through all the different people I met doing the MBA. Of course I learned an awful lot in the classroom, but I also learned a huge amount from my classmates. And there’s also that reflective piece and learning so much about yourself. For me, it was very much about gaining new knowledge, thinking more about my own way of working, and also gaining confidence. When I started the MBA, one of the professors said education gives you confidence and I think that’s so true.

What about your new role?

I moved to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) as head of low carbon technologies in 2015. The opportunity came up relatively shortly after finishing the MBA. When you see a good opportunity you have to go for it, irrespective of the timing.

The SEAI’s remit is to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in Ireland. We work very closely with our parent department, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, providing analysis and support as it requires it to help and inform evidence-based decision making.

My team is responsible for providing research, analysis and data to inform policy on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In the energy system as a whole there are three main parts: power generation, the heating sector, and the transport sector.

Ireland is doing well in terms of power generation, where over a quarter of our output is delivered by renewable energy. That’s really significant and puts us among the top countries in the world in terms of the contribution of renewable sources.

We’re seeing more challenges in heat and transport and they’re difficult sectors to tackle. We do see some progress in terms of energy efficiency and renewable in those sectors but we need to see more as we go towards 2020 and look beyond to 2030. It’s a really big prize for us to win if we get this right in terms of reducing our emissions and environmental impact, which is a central goal of all of this, but also regarding bringing economic benefits to Ireland. As a country, we spend about €5bn every year importing fossil fuels to use in our energy system. If we can use our own natural resources to do that, we can keep that money in the country.

What’s your philosophy in business in life?

If I were to boil it down to a few words, I would say work hard and play hard. I love my job and am very committed to it and I’m very passionate about what I do, but I also have a whole life outside of work as well. And it’s really important to me that I can leave work after a full day and throw myself into whatever I’m doing outside and really get that head space. That balance is something I always had –through college and my working life – and I’m keeping it with me. To be effective in work, I certainly need to have that other perspective.

What about your leadership style?

It’s constantly evolving. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say I have “a style”. I do tend towards a more participative coaching style of leadership. So, really enabling people to be the best that they can be and to learn and grow and develop. I get an awful lot out of it when I see people stepping up and moving beyond their comfort zone and delivering.

I’ve learnt over the years that I need to be flexible and adaptable to be an effective leader. Every situation and person is different and, as an effective leader, you need to be able to flex and adapt your style to meet the circumstances to get the best out of everyone.

 What are your tips and advice for success?

My one piece of advice is really to be true to yourself and do something you enjoy. If I think back over the jobs I’ve really enjoyed it’s been roles in organisations that have aligned with my own values. Understanding what’s important to you – and it takes a bit of time to get to that – will really help you find that job that suits you best and where you’ll thrive and flourish. So to be true to yourself and understand your motivators and your values would be my tip for long-term success.

Who or what are your main influences?

It would have to be my parents. There are three main things they’ve instilled in me.

First is always to do your best – you don’t have to be the best but just always do your personal best.

Secondly, you can do anything. They instilled in me that if you apply yourself to whatever it is you want to do, you can have a good go at everything. And I would give most things a go – I have a very positive attitude in that regard.

Thirdly, my dad has a very good sense of humour and that’s certainly taught me to be able to laugh, and laugh at myself, and I think that’s important. We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.

What are your interests outside work?

I love sport and any outdoor activities. I run a lot and that gives me a lot of head space: everything looks different after a run. I also love cycling – mountain biking and road biking – and do lot of that as well.

And I do a lot of reading. There’s nothing more relaxing than getting totally lost in a really good book.

Any plans for the future you want to share?

I still consider myself relatively new in this role and I want to make a success of it. We have a great team of people here, including a new CEO.  There’s an awful lot to be done and I want to make sure we’re giving the best advice, analysis and information to policy makers and ultimately Government to enable evidence-based decision making on the best solutions for Ireland in terms of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In a career punctuated by ongoing education, Greg Hayden has been making good use of that learning to ensure the survival and subsequent return to growth of Ethos Engineering, the mechanical and electrical engineering firm he founded in 2005. In 2016, the company won a number of awards, while Hayden was named European CEO of the Year by the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE).

“The UCD Smurfit MBA programme was tough, but extremely rewarding. Once I got into the rhythm and flow of juggling things in the first semester, it got easier and I loved it. The knowledge I acquired through the MBA gave me the overall business foundation I was looking for. I believe in hard work, focus and action but a bit of fun along the way can relieve stress. My classmates were highly intelligent, fun, witty and loved some healthy debate, so we all learned a lot from each other, as well as from the professors.”

For Howard Beggs, doing an MBA just after starting a business in 1995 was a key step in enabling his company to reach its growth potential. The Clanwilliam Group’s current five-year plan involves increasing revenues from €20m to nearly €100m by 2020.

Tell us about your education and early career

I was educated by the Christian Brothers and took up a job in the Smurfit Group straight after the Leaving Cert. It was around the time of the advent of the IBM PC in the late 1980s and I got a role in the emerging computer division. That was my introduction to technology and selling and implementing software solutions.

In 1995, I founded a small business focused on developing a software package for private medical consultants where none had existed before. There was an emerging sophistication around making claims with insurance companies at the time and the idea of automating that was the genesis of the company.

What were your reasons for doing an MBA?

After starting the business, I quickly realised there was a large gap in terms of my financial ability and knowledge of how to run a business. And that was when I started looking at my options. So, in parallel with the early years of the business, I started an MBA at the Smurfit School in 1996.

How did the company develop?

The first three years or so of the business was very much the hard slog: after building the product it was all about going around marketing it and selling it on a practice-by-practice basis.

I graduated from the MBA programme in 1999 and if you were to look at the revenue and growth of the business over the last 20 years you’d see an inflection point relevant to the UCD graduation.

By 1999, we had six staff and were doing revenues of €500,000. Using a lot of the learning from the MBA I focused on creating the first extensive business plan document and then taking that to the market.

Within the entrepreneurship programme, Frank Roche had introduced a lot of venture capital community players and that was probably one of the most important elements of the MBA for me. In 2000, we completed our first formal fundraising of about €1m through Davy Stockbrokers. For the first time, the company was now a fully capitalised business and could execute on a business plan.

Suddenly the sales started to double. And that enabled us to look at an acquisition strategy, which again was something I learnt about in the MBA. So we went back to the market in 2003 and raised a further €2m from Bank of Ireland Venture Capital. We used that for some early adventures into the UK and for our first acquisition of our major competitor at the time. By then, we had moved from the early model of just medical consultants into general practice, which had opened up an entire new market. By 2005, the business was generating €3.4m in revenue, employing 30 people and had two professional investors.

In 2006, we merged with what was then the largest provider of software applications to pharmacies in Ireland – that was a big milestone and a very nice link-up. We branded all of that as Helix Health in 2007. The business was now doing about €8m combined and employing around 95 people.

At the point of the merger, the existing investors had exited but in 2008, Davy’s came back to make a further €1m investment. The next year, we acquired our second business, which was also in the practice management space.

By 2010, we had broken the €10m mark and were up to 100 staff. We also won the Irish Software Association (ISA) Company of the Year award. And, at the end of the year, we developed a business plan for the following five years that focused on replicating our success and strong market position in practice management and pharmacy software in Ireland into the UK. At that stage, we had only tinkered on the edge of that market and had just a handful of customers in UK hospitals.

Investec invested €5m and we also had a debt partner in Blue Bay and with that we made two very important acquisitions in 2012 and 2013. First, we acquired a small web-based pharmacy provider, which got us a foothold in the retail pharmacy market, and then we acquired the market leader in practice management for medical consultants across the UK. By 2014, our business was 60pc out of Ireland and 40pc out of the UK.

Today, we have approaching 1,000 stores in the UK and we’re the number three provider in pharmacies. And, we’re the market leader for medical consultants in practice management.

In 2014, the US investment company Eli Global came in and together we created Clanwilliam Group, which is effectively the holding company for all of the businesses, including two recent acquisitions. With the exception of myself, all the existing shareholders exited the business at that stage.

Today, the Clanwilliam Group is doing €20m in revenues and employs 207 people on three continents. Using Eli’s offshore resources, we now have finance and development functions based out of a centre of excellence in India and we have 20 people based in the Philippines.

What are your future plans for the business?

The business plan is quite aggressive now that I have a new financial investment partner. The plan is to continue to acquire businesses even further field.

I sincerely believe my greatest achievements are still in the future, not the past. I think everything that’s been done so far is a platform to something greater. Looking at the next five years to 2020, the ambitions are bigger than ever and include growing from €20m to a near €100m business. The steps that need to be taken for that are already being taken and it’s probably more exciting than ever. And a big part of that is having a very strong management team.

Tell us about your leadership style

It’s something that has evolved over the years as the organisation has changed and expanded. In the early days, it was a very focused, driven leadership style – very hands on and leading from the front. I would have been very detail oriented in the early part of the business because I felt I needed to be. Today, with so many staff and a very strong management team, the provision of leadership is focused on empowering that management team and stepping back from the detail.

Who or what are your career influences?

There isn’t specifically one person who I would say I particularly admired and followed. In the early days, and probably because it was in my DNA, I would have looked at the style of Michael Smurfit and the business he built up. Since then, I have looked at what different people have done with various technology issues. But there is no particular role model.

What are your tips and advice for success?

Over the last decade I have been involved in programmes in NovaUCD and have mentored small businesses through the ISA and where I have seen early stage entrepreneurs succeed, it’s not necessarily about the business plan or the business idea. To me, it seems that the most valuable asset is the focus and determination of that entrepreneur. And I think that’s probably something that early stage investors and the VC community are most interested in too. Yes, the business plan needs to be good and it needs to solve a problem, but essentially in the early stages, you’re backing the entrepreneur and you’re very much looking for that determination.

So, my biggest tip would be that if you do not believe 100pc in your business plan, if you are not 100pc determined to succeed at this and 100pc focused on it, I think you’ll be less than successful.

What are your main interests outside of work?

I try to keep fit. I think I’m at my happiest engaging in mild hiking in the Dublin Mountains. If I can get a 10k hike in every second week, whatever the weather, it proves to me that the parts are still working. I’m a pretty passionate rugby supporter of both Leinster and the Irish teams. And then it’s very much about family: my wife and four children, who range in ages from 14 to 20.

Drawn to the public service after spending the early part of his career in the private sector, Ed Sibley joined the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) in 2008, just weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the financial crisis. For the last four years he has been at the Central Bank of Ireland where he was recently promoted to director of credit institutions supervision.

Can you tell us a bit about your education and early career?

My main qualifications are a first class BA economics degree from the UK and an MBA from UCD Smurfit. I had a couple of full-time jobs before doing my economics degree, which I completed in 1997. From university I joined PwC, working in risk management solutions, initially in London and then moving to Dublin in 1999.

I was there for six years. It was a really good foundation for my career in terms of developing my business skills and confidence in dealing with a wide range of topics and circumstances. Working with very bright and highly committed people also influenced my work ethic longer term.

In 2003, I joined Bank of Ireland here in Dublin, initially in an internal audit role. After a couple of years I moved back to the UK and took up a risk and compliance role with the bank there.

What was the thinking behind doing the MBA?

A lot of people decide to do an MBA because they want a change. It’s a very serious qualification and will open up other opportunities and that’s the way I looked at it. I thought it would broaden me in terms of my knowledge and skill set, which it definitely did. But, fundamentally a large part of my decision was about wanting to change and to give myself more options to do different things.

What kind of change did it lead to?

I think I was reasonably successful at PwC and Bank of Ireland but I’d never been entirely satisfied with the value of the work I was doing. I finished the MBA in 2006 and moved to the UK shortly after that. I subsequently moved to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which was a very conscious and considered change. The MBA absolutely contributed in terms of my ability to do that.

Tell us a bit about your time at the FSA

I joined in August 2008 and it was just before the Lehmans bankruptcy, the collapse of the Icelandic banking system, the Irish guarantee and the bailout of the UK banking system. I headed up our work on European banks at the height of the Eurozone crisis. It was an extraordinary period.

There were and continue to be huge economic and social costs associated with the crisis, and that is something we should never forget. For my own experience and learning and being able to make a contribution it was an incredible time to be there.

The organisation was going through a degree of change as a result of the failures it had experienced. That, together with all the issues we were dealing with, made it a really interesting time. I learnt a huge amount, more so than any other time in my career until then.  And I’m very proud of what was achieved with the FSA.

What led to your move back to Ireland?

My wife is Irish and moving back here was very much driven by what was best for my family.

But there was only one place I was going to come to work. The Central Bank was the only place I wanted to work, and I wouldn’t have returned for any other job at that time. What we do in the Central Bank is really important and I find it very interesting and it appeals to the things that drive me.

Tell us about your roles at the Central Bank

When I first joined in 2012 I was responsible for the supervision of the domestic banks. We were halfway through the Troika programme, arrears were still going up, the banks were still vulnerable in terms of their own positions and the economy was still very much in recession. So there was a huge number of challenges for the State, for the Central Bank and the banks themselves.  A lot has been achieved since then, but there is clearly more to be done.

In early 2014, I was promoted to head of division. We restructured banking supervision shortly after that and I took on responsibility for the day to day supervision of all the banks. The restructure was in response to the changes arising out of ‘Banking Union’, and the associated transfer of overall responsibility for banking supervision to the European Central Bank (ECB). We now operate as part of a wider, international mechanism – the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) – as part of the banking supervision within the Eurozone.

Earlier this year, I was promoted to director of credit institutions supervision. I’m now responsible for leading around 200 staff in the delivery of the supervision of all the banks operating in Ireland, including inspection and analytical work, and also the credit union sector, working with the registrar of credit unions.

How has your role changed?

My primary responsibilities now are really around making sure that we are supervising in an effective, intrusive and appropriate way and delivering the right supervisory outcomes for the banks and the credit unions. That’s what I am ultimately paid for, so that’s my primary focus.

We don’t operate in isolation so it’s also very much an international role. I’m in Frankfurt every two weeks or so, attending meetings at the ECB decision-making body and engaging with ECB staff and colleagues from other national central banks and supervisory bodies. I see being influential in a European context as a key part of my role, as it’s crucial to our delivery of the right supervisory outcomes. We also still have quite a lot of engagement with the likes of the International Monetary Fund, which I typically am heavily involved with.

The other part, and one of the things that really attracted me to the role, is as a member of the leadership team here. I’m now directly involved in the running of the bank. We are a people organisation: we’re dependent on the quality and capability and motivation of our people so that’s a critical part. We’ve learnt a lot of lessons and have moved on a great deal from the dark days of 2008 and we’re fundamentally a different organisation. The Central Bank is a great place to work, full of dedicated, intelligent, expert people driven by the public good.  But we need to continue to improve and develop and I think I have a role to play in that as a member of the senior leadership team.

What are your main motivators?

What I’ve learnt from a work perspective is that being passionate and believing in what you do and spend time on is really important. Being able to believe in the aims and ambitions and ethos of the organisation you work for is vital. My role today really does match my drivers. The things that make me tick are working for societal or public good, doing something that I think is meaningful, and being able to continue to develop and learn and do interesting things.

When I moved out of industry and into the regulatory side I found something that I could really engage with and be proud of. And I think that’s made a real difference in how I’ve progressed. It’s more difficult to reach your potential if you don’t feel passionate about what you do. I have a degree of relentlessness about me in terms of wanting to improve things and wanting to be better myself. That, combined with the connection I feel with the Central Bank and what we do, is reasonably powerful.

What is your leadership style?

It’s one of the things I’ve spent a lot of time thinking on, working on and developing. I would certainly aspire to being focused on instilling a sense of purpose for people, as well as thinking about what we are trying to achieve for the future. It’s about really trying to elevate the meaning of our work: why it is important, why we are doing it, what we are hoping to achieve and where we are trying to get to.

That’s the aspirational piece. On a more practical level, I try to be pretty inclusive. I would hope I have an open style. I try to engage with people and take contributions but at the same time act decisively at the point when a decision needs to be made. Once a decision has been made I throw my focus and efforts into getting things done.

What are your tips or advice for success?

I think if you’re passionate about what you do, believe in what you do and try to continuously develop and improve what you do it’s a powerful combination. In the earlier part of my career I worked really hard and was reasonably successful. More recently, I’ve had much better connection with and have been a lot more passionate about what I do and have consequently been more successful, and, really importantly, happier.  If you can connect with what drives you, whatever that might be, I think that’s a good recipe for success.

Who or what are your main influences?

It’s a bit of a cliché, but my father was and still is very driven, both professionally and in all that he does. He rarely sits still and whether that’s genetic or experience transferred, I think I’m very similar. Both my parents were and still are committed to public service and societal good and I think that’s also been influential in how I’ve wanted to spend my life.

From a more professional perspective, I’ve been really fortunate across a range of organisations and roles to have worked for and with some very good people, and some very different people and management and leadership styles. I am a bit of a magpie so I’ve tried to pick up and learn things from lots of different people and apply them myself.

What are your interests outside work?

I spend a lot of time working, so when I’m not working I try to focus as much as I can on my family.  So family comes first. When I do have time, I love sports. I have relatively recently accepted that I’m no longer in the first flush of youth and have stopped playing football to any serious level, but I do continue to watch and support my local club in the UK – Southampton – when I get the chance. I love cricket and I’ve just taken up running in the last year, which I’m just about enjoying. It’s keeping me fitter than I would otherwise be since I stopped playing competitive sports.

I’m also involved with the charity ALONE, which is very rewarding and I’m very proud to be associated with it.

Any plans for the future that you want to share?

I’ve never had a five-year plan. I’m not one to think in that way. But from a work perspective, I’m really committed to the Central Bank and I hope to be here for many years. Our plans for the future are to continue to improve what we do and how we do it.

"On returning to Ireland after almost a decade working abroad, I decided to finally pursue a long term goal of undertaking an MBA.  I found the UCD Smurfit School 2013/14 MBA Course challenging, invigorating, exhausting, and thoroughly rewarding.  I feel that the MBA has helped to expose and to close many of the gaps in my business knowledge. It has afforded me the opportunity to learn from world-class academics as well as from my internationally diverse classmates with wide and varied experience and expertise."

"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."

A desire to have a bigger impact on health systems globally led Ellen Feehan (MBA 08) from her career as a plastic surgeon in Dublin to McKinsey, where she is a principal in the healthcare practice, a role that has taken her from Dublin to New Jersey to Sydney and back to New Jersey again, working with clients across the world on transformation and value creation.

Tell us a bit about your education

I started by studying medicine in Trinity and worked in the health system in Ireland for 10 years as a surgeon and plastic surgeon until 2005.

Then I did an international diploma in humanitarian assistance and was on Irish Aid’s Rapid Response Corps for humanitarian disaster and worked with Goal in Niger in West Africa and in Pakistan after the earthquake there.

In 2006 I joined the executive MBA in health services management at Smurfit and alongside that I worked in the Tropical Medical Bureau.

Once I finished the programme in 2008, I joined McKinsey and have been the firm ever since. I did take one spell out during my first year to work on secondment with the World Health Organization in Geneva on the Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Programme and I’ve been connected with them on an ongoing basis since.

Why did you leave surgery?

I loved every minute of my training as a medical student and my career as a doctor and a surgeon. I probably got to a point where I was wondering what was on the next horizon for me and how I could expand my impact beyond an individual patient or an individual setting or hospital and think about how the system is run on a much broader level. I considered a range of options in terms of the MBA programme I would pursue and decided the one in health services management would be a very nice bridge in that it would still be in my area of passion but would also give me a broader view in terms of how the business world works. So, I was driven by the desire to have impact beyond the individual context I was in at a much bigger scale.

What does your role at McKinsey involve?

I joined as an experienced hire associate in the Dublin office and did a lot of work mainly based in the UK but across Europe as well. Then I transferred as part of the global rotation programme where you work in two regions outside your home region. I went to New Jersey at the cusp of Obamacare, working on innovative care delivery models and reimbursement mechanisms for two years initially and then travelled to Sydney for four years. And now I have just returned to New Jersey and I’m going to stay here for the foreseeable future.

My focus the whole time has been working with health systems and services – so either federal or state health departments on the public sector side or private sector entities such as hospital system or insurers – in driving healthcare value creation and harnessing the potential of clinicians to lead transformation and change.

My focus now is going to be on the health system in the US with a minor focus on supporting health system transformation in Japan. I still maintain connections with Australia and with the UK.

What is really exciting for me is being able to work with health systems across the globe and, while there are many differences, there are a lot of similarities.

I received very good foundational training on the health services MBA around the healthcare value focus and where the opportunities were in transforming systems, and that’s been a constant throughout the work that I’ve done.

Tell us about your leadership style

Throughout your career at McKinsey, leadership is a major focus. As a junior partner, probably about three years ago, I joined a centred leadership programme that was being offered for internal participants at the firm. This programme was developed originally by Joanna Barsh. She wanted to understand how remarkable women lead and did a lot of research globally understanding what the dimensions of effective leadership are. No surprise, the dimensions of effective leadership for women are the same as for men.

Part of this programme was framed around the core principles of centred leadership. So, there are five lenses: meaning – finding and inspiring purpose that is built on strengths and using this to generate action; framing – looking at problems in new ways to find better solutions; energising – actively managing experiences to achieve maximum flow in the work day; connecting – actively shaping your network style and your sense of belonging and ability to manage change and personal growth; and engaging – taking personal accountability for your life experience and setting aside fears so you can step into opportunities.

That really resonated with me and reflected my own approach to leadership. Again, the core principle of that is trying to support self mastery and leading self before you can think about leading others and then leading organisational transformation. So that’s a three-step process.

I’ve translated that to a Remarkable Women programme in Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines and launched it for senior clients who are looking for that next acceleration in their growth to get to the senior ranks in their organisation. It’s now in its third year and it’s a very exciting programme.

For me, it’s a constant refresher around those leadership dimensions and trying to practise across those dimensions on a regular basis to be effective.

I’ll continue to support Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines in this regard for the next year or two. And I’m going to talk to the folks in the US who are part of a broader programme here to see how we can invigorate this on the East Coast.

What is your philosophy in business and life?

The biggest thing is to focus on impact and then empower others to be able to deliver against that impact. Another big thing is to make sure you’re authentic in your leadership so you’re walking the talk and able to demonstrate that.

How that translates is being non-hierarchical, trying to collaborate and bring the power of the team, thinking to the co-creation of any solution and then the surgical mind always brings me back to the implementation and how you’re going to deliver against the practicalities.

Who or what are your influences?

In the work I did in the World Health Organization I worked with Dr Meena Cherian, an anaesthetist from India, and I was really inspired by her tenacity. She identified a gap in surgical care in low and middle income countries at the primary care level. Over a period of six years she has been able to work through a very collaborative global network of surgeons and anaesthetists to get surgery in the primary care setting raised to the global level and has had it ratified as a resolution on the executive board for the WHO so it has to be a priority area of focus for countries. What was very inspiring was her vision that there was an enormous problem that was probably not being fully addressed and her tenacity in understanding where the influences lie and following up on it and driving to impact.

The other big piece I think is this centred leadership philosophy and the awakening of the ability to have a balanced leadership style – so not just thinking with the left side of your brain but harnessing the power of both sides.

What are your tips or advice for success?

I think it’s really key to follow your passion and have fun as you go.

The second thing is, identify and focus on your strengths. It’s important to really sit down and take time to reflect and identify what they are and convene with others to work out what they are, and then harness that potential and the strength’s potential in others.

The last thing is, be prepared to let the solution or the insight emerge. There’s just some element of magic in stepping back and not just taking the logical approach to where the solution might lie but thinking about where your flashes of inspiration may come from and then acting on those.

That’s been one of the core success factors I’ve had throughout my career. It’s almost sensing what’s going on, with of course hard work and tenacity, but allowing the flashes of inspiration to happen, listening and acting on them, even if they may seem counterintuitive.

What have been your biggest successes to date?

I think my entire career as a doctor and surgeon was a high point. At McKinsey I’ve loved being able to drive impact at scale in health systems, including signing a million people up for an electronic health record in every nook and cranny across Australia, working with a state hospital system to reconfigure their services to drive higher quality care and supporting private organisations through successful mergers. And I’ve loved being able to work with amazing people and to tap into the richness of a range of leadership styles through things like the Remarkable Women programme.

What about failures?

I have no regrets. But I know that areas I need to reinforce for myself are to focus on strengths and then be bold, sufficiently bold, and take action, and, instead of delaying or procrastinating, take earlier action.

Do you have any plans for the future?

I’ve just moved and I’m very excited to see at what opportunities lie here and what I can bring that’s distinctive and transformative. And I’m excited about trying to more rapidly cycle through my own transformation journeys to make change happen on a bigger scale quicker.

What are your interests outside work?

I’m very pleased to be back in New York. I love the city and I’m looking forward to re-engaging with it. I see it now as my long term home, having been very nomadic for quite a while. 

And I love trips home to Ireland. My family is based there. I grew up on a farm in Castlebellingham in Co Louth and I have very strong connections there. Being in the US is so much easier than Australia in terms of trips home.

And the plastic surgeon in me is still very excited by that confluence between functionality and form. I’m furnishing my new apartment and appreciating the utility of things that are beautiful is really exciting, down to kitchen gadgets and utensils and pieces of furniture. That’s always a creative outlet for me. 

"Completing the Smurfit MBA is one of the most enjoyable and memorable life experiences I’ve been fortunate enough to have. My motivation for undertaking an MBA was to enable a change in career and to receive a well-rounded understanding of business. The Smurfit MBA did that and much more. The sheer breadth of knowledge imparted onto MBA students is eye-opening. From finance to strategy to marketing, there are few conversations with business people that you will feel unqualified to take part in after completing the MBA. The faculty is brimming with inspiring lecturers and the school staff are always on hand to assist students in whatever way they can. The diverse student body makes the extensive team work both challenging and enjoyable, and each student must learn how to work in an international context to achieve tangible results. To cap it all off, you make great friends on the MBA and the experiences you share together on the international business trips are truly amazing. The MBA is so much more than an academic course, and this can only be fully appreciated by doing one. I am very happy with my decision to complete an MBA in Smurfit GBS and would highly recommend it to anyone."

A firm advocate of pursuing new directions and following a systems-based approach, Georgina Kearney founded Mint Tek – an online marketplace to enable hardware developers source printed circuit boards for their prototypes – along with her MBA classmate Siobhán Ní Chogaigh in 2014. The start-up, which is currently raising seed funding, recently signed a deal to provide its printed circuit board quotation service to RS Component’s Design Spark community for electronic design engineers.

Can you tell us a bit about your career background?

I trained as an accountant with CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and my early career was in all in finance. I worked in a range of different companies, including Chivers, Symantec and Oracle. I was in my late 20s and had quite a good role when I left Oracle to go travelling. After 18 months in Australia I came back to Dublin and worked for a year as a financial controller before heading off again to South America for a year.

When I returned in 2004 I joined Dublin Bus and stayed there for eight years in various roles, starting out in finance and very much involved in helping to make the company more commercially focused.

What led to you doing an MBA?

I got the opportunity through Dublin Bus to do the MBA as the CIE chairman at the time was a very strong advocate of the programme.

One of the most important outcomes for me was that it gave me the confidence to present and work in groups. And it also had huge benefits in terms of the people I met. I ended up going into business with Siobhán, while Bob Lee, another classmate, became our first investor in the company.

In terms of my career in Dublin Bus, it led to me moving up through the ranks and also gave me the opportunity to move out of finance, because I wanted to broaden my skillset. I moved into other roles geared towards systems implementation and eventually I became quality manager.

What is the background to setting up Mint Tek?

I always knew I wanted to do something different. Siobhán and I had both done the entrepreneurship module as part of the MBA so the idea of setting up a company was definitely on our radar.

I had gone out on my own as a consultant and coach when Siobhán called me in the summer of 2014 to talk about her idea and ask if I wanted to get involved.

Siobhán had spent all her career in the sales side of the electronics industry and had most recently worked for Beta Layout, which supplied low volume printed circuit boards for people who are developing hardware products.

Recognising that developers had to research various manufacturers when they wanted to make a prototype, her idea was to create a platform connecting hardware design engineers to a base of global manufacturing companies that have been vetted by us for quality.

Through Mint Tek, if you’re a hardware developer, we can put you in touch with the right manufacturer for your requirements. We call it a smart solution for hardware design engineers and it’s along the lines of the Airbnb and Micksgarage smart solutions.

There’s a big demand for our service and it’s growing. For a long time, software increased rapidly while hardware lagged behind. Now, for various reasons – including the advent of 3D printing, growth in start-ups and the internet of things – there’s much more hardware development than before.

We started off providing the service in Ireland and we also now have customers in the UK. And we recently signed our first deal with a very large global company, RS Components, which has a division called Design Spark that provides a community for hardware design engineers and provides free software. We have become the supply partner for Design Spark. The deal has only been live about a month but it’s already generated sales from Scandinavia, Northern Europe, USA and Australia.

What are your roles?

Siobhan is the CEO and I’m the CFO. Because Siobhan has the industry knowledge and the vision, she’s also very good on sales, ideas, networking and information. With my financial background, my job is to take the vision and ideas, put them into practical application and create systems. She’s the visionary looking up and I’m looking at how it all makes sense on the ground.

What are the company’s immediate plans?

We want to develop relationships with other partners like RS Components that can connect us with individual users, but we are also looking to work with more high value customers –research institutes, universities and large companies – where we can provide more of a concierge service. We have high value, repeat business from companies including the Tyndall Institute, Microsoft, NUIG, Abrel Products and CW Applied Technologies.

But our most important job at the moment is securing investment. We’re in the middle of a round of seed funding that we need to develop our route to market and to work on our sales platform. Enterprise Ireland has agreed to give us €125,000, but we have to match that with private equity. So far, we’ve managed to get commitments of €50,000 and we’re currently talking to various investors and angels.

What’s the more long term plan?

We are currently moving into full assembly so we can make full products for our customers. We’re also looking at ways of adding further value – basically being able to combine customers’ designs with embedded technologies.

Our plan is to exit from the business in around six years. It’s so important to think about when you’re going to exit and for how much you want to sell your business. The reality of a start-up is that if you don’t sell for a certain amount, you have to ask yourself why you bothered.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I really do think that from day one, you have to have systems for everything in the business and that makes it really easy to scale up and also ensures consistent quality. I’m very big on everything being done in a certain way at a certain time. There is flexibility in a start-up, but it’s really important to have the systems there.

What is your philosophy in business and life?
I was a coach for a while and I’m big into various techniques for self improvement. I’m very interested in the subconscious and how your beliefs and emotions influence what’s happening, and around the whole area of self awareness. When I have a problem or an interpersonal issue, I am constantly asking why it happened and what I can do to improve it. Again, it’s a bit like a quality system: how can I do things better?

Who or what are your greatest influences?

I’m not sure about who my greatest influences are, but there are a few people I certainly respect. One is Leonora O’Brien, who is a pharmacist by trade and went on to found PharmaPod, a tech solution for pharmacies. I really admire people who are able to go from one world to a completely different world.

I also admire Nora Casey and the fact that she managed to go from being a nurse to where she is now and has been so successful in a man’s world and for so long. I also like the fact that she wants to help other women.

And I admire Victoria Beckham for carving out a career in fashion design and having done it out of nowhere. She put her head down and decided she was going to do it and has done it so well. I like the idea of somebody making a massive transition in their life and really doggedly pursuing what they want to do.

What tips or advice do you have for success?

If you feel you want to make a change in your life, think about it. Don’t think, I’m too old or I can’t, because there’s always a way. That said, it’s not a good idea to make rash decisions. You have to think about it and cultivate it and take various steps towards it in a practical way. If you’ve got to pay your mortgage, you’ve got to pay your mortgage, but do something about it if you want to make a change.

What has been your biggest success or failure in business?

We’re quite proud of the deal we did with RS Components. I’m also very pleased that the business is still here and is going in the right direction and growing momentum. 

In terms of my own successes in business, at Dublin Bus I was brought in to make the company more commercially successful and I helped it to achieve significant cost savings and offer a better quality service.

As regards failures, it didn’t really work when I went out as a coach. It’s hard to get business as an independent. But it taught me that even if you want a change, it may be wise to look to go on a four-day week if you can.

What are your plans for the future?

I’d like to be in a position where I could re-invest in another company or become an investor. I really liked working in multinationals, but I value the fact that we’re starting to develop a culture now in Ireland where we’re creating our businesses. I’m passionate about the start-up culture and I’m also passionate about women getting more involved. I guess I’d ultimately like to invest in female-led businesses orbusinesses where there is a good female presence.

What are your interests outside of work?

I like running. I live in Connemara and I love the countryside and getting out and in touch with nature. I like to do a bit of cooking. And, I love the whole area of self improvement and working on the subconscious.

"The UCD Smurfit School Executive MBA was a richly rewarding experience on many fronts. Coming from a not-for-profit management background, I found it really interesting to gain insights into different industry environments and to work alongside diverse and talented classmates in a team based-learning environment. The Capstone Project afforded an excellent opportunity to apply new skills and knowledge to a current challenge facing a company and coupled with the leadership development course. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the EMBA and look forward to maintaining friendships and business links with UCD Smurfit School Alumni into the future."

"The UCD Smurfit School MBA was the catalyst for a huge amount of change in my life both professionally and personally. The leadership development course gives you an unrivalled opportunity to improve how you work in teams, both in leadership and follower roles. The further you advance in your business career the more you realise that being right or being the idea champion is far less important than being someone that contributes to the overall dynamic in a team. In the modern business environment only teams can solve complex problems effectively. It is now a prerequisite for career success that you can thrive in this environment. UCD Smurfit School equipped me with the skills and mind-set that I need to succeed in this environment."

A strong self-belief system and commitment to ongoing learning – both of which were nurtured by her parents – have been instrumental in Julie O’Neill’s career progression, which, to date, has included becoming vice-president of operations and general manager, Ireland of biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, and, last year, being elected the first female president of Ibec.

O’Neill’s interest in the pharma-related sector began at a young age. “When I was a child my parents’ very good friends were pharmacists. I spent many hours in the back of the pharmacy and was always fascinated by the activities and even the smells in pharmacies. When I was going through school it always struck me as a career that I would be interested in.”

After studying pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin, she opted to spend six months in industry during her pre-registration year, as well as the obligatory six months in retail pharmacy. “I was absolutely fascinated by industry and was fortunate enough to meet some exceptional people, entrepreneurially and technically, at the time,” she says. “That just really forged my interest in the pharmaceutical industry.”

Since qualifying in 1989, she’s spent the vast majority of her time in the industry side of things. The exception was a two-year sabbatical from 1995 to 1997 when she and a colleague opened four pharmacies in Dublin. Setting up the business coincided with her Smurfit Business School studies. “I used a lot of the learnings from the executive MBA in the development of the business in terms of marketing and finance. Having had a purely technical background at that stage – both in terms of my qualification but also in the execution of my job – the executive MBA opened my mind to what is really needed to run a business and to run and grow a business successfully.”

O’Neill says she was motivated to do the MBA by the belief that she needed to increase her skill sets if she was to develop in terms of managing and leading a business of any description. “I think an MBA is a great basis for anyone in business because it gives excellent grounding across a broad sphere of disciplines,” she says. “I think it gave me great insight into how other functions worked, how functions interacted with each other and the reliance on different functions within a corporate organisation. It really spurred me to think differently about how the pharmaceutical industry worked and what was needed to run a business within that area.”

The introduction at the time of licensing of pharmacies created a scramble for licences, says O’Neill, with the result that she and her partner chose to sell up after a relatively short period.

She then joined NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Gilead a couple of years later in 1999, as general manager. “I had just come back from my honeymoon the week I started work. We were eight people and we had a single product. Ireland was used as the launch site for that product entering the European supply chain.”

Over the years, the business in Ireland has developed from being an importation and distribution business to being a fully integrated manufacturing and distribution operation, she says. “We now import active ingredients that are manufactured throughout the world and we manufacture medicines for the treatment of HIV and Aids and other disease states in the plant in Cork. And then we perform all of our international distribution operations through the facility in Dublin.” The Irish operation currently employs 250 people.

“We all worked to make the business successful as it was and as it grew. We haven’t lost some of that entrepreneurial activity – or as I call it intrapreneurial activity. I think the success of many companies that have invested in Ireland has largely been predicated on the intrapreneurial activities of its Irish management who’ve gone out and sought opportunities for the company in Ireland and are able to demonstrate how the Irish operation can deliver for a global corporation.”

Stepping up
At the beginning of 2010 she was appointed vice-president of operations for the company, which recently reported a 14pc increase in product sales to US$2.36bn in the quarter to 30 September 2012. “As a VP you have to think more holistically about the organisation rather than just specifically about the operation that you run,” she says. “It is about greater engagement, cross function and cross geography and making sure that you work very effectively with people everywhere in the Gilead network. It’s just another step up on the leadership framework when you start to think about how every piece of the puzzle impacts upon the delivery of our medicines to patients. You just have to think about the goal more strategically.”

Apart from the day job, O’Neill is currently on the governing body of University College Cork, a member of the Advisory Council for Sciences, Technology and Innovation, and on the research institute advisory board at UCD’s Conway Institute. She’s also on the board of Crann, the Trinity College-based nanoscience institute. She was president of Ibec until September of this year, when Microsoft Ireland’s Paul Rellis took over, and is a former chairperson of Ibec group PharmaChemical Ireland.

The workload is not as heavy as it sounds, she says. “Some of the work is very much advisory and the engagement is at the request of the executive when they need advice. It’s a very limited involvement. In the presidential role at Ibec it was a very busy time, but it was a tremendous opportunity for me to lead an organisation in a slightly different way, engaging with stakeholders and trying to get the message of the members of Ibec.”

She believes participation in external organisations is a two-way street for senior leaders. “There’s a lot that you bring to an organisation in terms of engagement and oversight and the enterprise-type agenda. But also you learn so much from other institutions and how they manage their business and what they’re trying to do. So it’s a kind of synergistic relationship.

“I think through participating in some of these advisory bodies and governance bodies I have gained an awful lot or as much as they have gained from me. I would encourage more business leaders to collaborate and work with other organisations. I think it’s a great opportunity for business and for the organisations themselves.”

She also stresses the importance of being able to network with other leaders from the same sector. “Being alone in a senior leadership role can be a lonely place and many of our agendas or issues are the same. Our own network of colleagues is a very useful resource.

“That’s what encouraged my external involvement. The fact that I moved on to leadership roles in those organisations, well, maybe I’m just a bossy person!”

O’Neill has also continued her own professional development and completed the Institute of Director’s chartered director programme in 2010 and was awarded designation in 2011. “I think it’s important to continue education. If you’re reliant on the information you had in ’96 or ’97, well business will pass you by and opportunity will pass you by. I firmly believe in continuing professional development and continuous learning.”

Lessons learned
O’Neill is also a firm believer in learning from mistakes but focusing on solutions. “We all face problems and to me the biggest issue is that you don’t get into a blame game or assigning fault. We learn from the mistake and we focus on what it is we need to do to resolve the issue and to move on. I’m very big on focusing on solutions and I think that’s how you engender collaboration and teamwork within your group.”

She stresses the value of mentoring, both formal and informal. “I think that’s something that helped me in my career. When I faced issues where I wasn’t sure what to do I would approach somebody I trusted to give me an opinion. And it wasn’t necessarily somebody always within this industry. My father and my uncle were great mentors at various stages and other people who I worked for and even more recently previous presidents of Ibec – I would pick up the phone when I was faced with a particularly challenging situation and ask their advice on how they would deal with something.

She likes to mentor women within her organisation. “I think one of the things we’re challenged with as leaders is ensuring there’s a constant stream of women at senior levels in organisations. And for various reasons women opt out – whether it’s for family, for social reasons or whether they just don’t have the confidence, I’m not quite sure where the solution in that dilemma lies, but I think mentoring and encouraging others can maybe help retain our very highly qualified, educated and excellent females in very senior leadership roles in organisations.”

One of the key influences on her success over the years has been her family, says O’Neill. “Both my parents engendered the value of education and continuous learning and also a belief system that matured my own self-belief and confidence. My parents today would still tell me there’s nothing I cannot achieve, that there are no limits to my success. And they said the same things to all of my siblings and I have three very successful siblings.”

More recently working in Gilead has had a significant impact. “Gilead is a phenomenal organisation chiefly because the patient is the focus,” she says. “That is a remarkable incentive to work and it’s a remarkable motivation.”

An engineer by profession, Seán Keating decided 10 years ago to focus on developing his management skills rather than further specialising in niche technical areas. In 2011, a year after completing an executive MBA, he was appointed Chief Executive of Dublin-based wireless consultancy and systems integrator, Vilicom.

Tell us about your education and early career

I did my primary degree in electronics engineering at DCU and have spent the last 20 years working in telecoms. Straight after college I started in Esat Digifone – it was very early days for the company and a very interesting and entrepreneurial place to be. I then did stints in Chicago, working for Lucent Technologies, and in the UK, where I was with Three. I came back to Ireland in 2002 to start working with Vilicom and have served in a number of roles since then, eventually becoming CEO in 2011.

Tell us about your company and your role

We are a wireless consultancy and systems integrator and we currently employ around 75 people. It’s a knowledge-based company so we’re very focused on keeping ahead of the technical curve and on developing people.

I started as lead RF consultant and gradually worked my way up to chief executive.

We have a great leadership team in here and we work together very collaboratively. I manage that team and also try to keep in touch with our people who are spread across a lot of offices.

I’m also quite involved in the sales area. That’s been one of the changes since I became CEO. Before that, I worked much more on the operations side of things. Vilicom’s contracts are generally quite short – from a few weeks to a couple of years – so the sales function is really important and there’s a big focus on going after new opportunities. It also means we live by our reputation.

Why did you decide to do an MBA?

I’d got to the stage where I was leading teams and a department and I just wanted to be as good as I possibly could be at that. In DCU we had to do a management subject every year and I found that very interesting. A lot of engineers get to a point where they have to choose between developing down a real technology niche route and going with the bigger picture. I just found I preferred managing projects, developing teams and broadening the scope of the company and I thought I should really go and get trained for it properly.

So I did my executive MBA at UCD from 2008 to 2010. It was a great course overall but one of the real highlights for me was the executive coaching and mentoring. It was a good time to sit down and really think about where I wanted to go career wise. My mentor was Eadine Hickey and I worked through different ideas with her. Sometimes it helps to be able to talk things through with somebody outside the company. But I was also very fortunate that I was able to come back to the office and chat with the directors about my career path and how we wanted the company to develop. A year after completing my MBA I was appointed CEO.

What motivates you?

A big motivator for me is spending time with customers. One of the reasons I joined Vilicom was the chance to work on lots of projects for lots of customers. It’s a much wider experience. With the telecoms companies you tend to work on the same project for two to four years and go all the way through their life cycle. Here in Vilicom we may be working on strategies for new technologies one week and on expanding the network the next. So there’s huge diversity in it and we’re involved in some great projects. We were lucky enough to work on the London Olympics, for example, and we’ve done national network rollouts in the UK, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Austria and New Zealand.

How would you describe your leadership style?

At the beginning it was probably quite project management oriented. As you develop, it’s important to delegate effectively and to do that, you need to have good people you trust around you. I enjoy working with the leadership team in Vilicom exploring broad ideas and narrowing down to decisions and strategies to achieve our goals. I find that the dialogue within the team works to get the best results for us and ultimately the company.

Who has influenced or inspired you?

My wife Miriam has been a very important influence and she’s been very supportive. When you’re doing an MBA there’s a huge time commitment – you’re working nine or 10 hours a day and then studying another three or four hours. We had a young family at home. So, my wife’s support was particularly important at that time.

On the inspiration side, there are some great engineers out there behind great companies, like John Malone and Liberty and Elon Musk and Tesla. What they’ve done is just fantastic and they’re a great inspiration to me.

What has been your biggest achievement to date?

Vilicom was spun out of a parent company in summer 2008 when the economy was really tanking. The recession in telecoms was three times worse than the general recession but during that time we trebled the size of the company. We now have a leading position in a niche area: I think we’re now the biggest systems integrator, delivering special coverage solutions in the UK and Ireland. I’m very proud of what the people in Vilicom have achieved during that time.

Any failures or mistakes you have learnt from?

I started a master’s in engineering in the early 2000s but five or six months into it realised it wasn’t for me and I was going further into that technical niche. Rather than just plodding on and getting the qualification and hating it, I decided to stop and a couple of years later did the MBA instead. It was a key realisation for me: I was always very techie before that but I realised that was enough and I had to change direction.

What are your tips or advice for success?

Have a plan and stick to it. Whether it’s your personal or business life, it’s good to have that plan.

Also, people talk about the importance of having work life balance and think the more time you spend on work, the more your personal life suffers and vice versa. I don’t see it like that. I think if you do well in work it supports your family and personal life. And if you have a good personal and family life, it supports your ability to work better. If you can work those two elements together it can be a very positive thing.

It’s important to choose your team really wisely. A bad hire, particularly at senior level, is very expensive.

And then just stay on top of the figures – daily, weekly and monthly.

What are your plans for the future?

We’ve started to do internet of things projects – around smart buildings, the energy sector and smart cities, for example – and it’s an absolute game changer. We are still mostly in telecoms and that will always be the foundation of our business. But we also have a new investment plan in place to expand into these new industry verticals. We’ve had good success in this area in the last 18 months and we want to push on with it.

What are your interests outside work?

I’ve started cycling again after a break of about 20 years. I used to race but had an injury and just stopped. I recently got fed up with running and got back into cycling at the end of last year, joined the local cycling club and am having a ball. I’ve also always been into the GAA. And of course I love spending time with the family.

Insight Track

How has your degree benefited your career?

It has equipped me with the leadership skills I need and given me the confidence to pursue new opportunities

What is your fondest memory from your time in UCD Smurfit School?

The international study trip to Brazil was amazing.

How important is your UCD alumni network to you?

Very, our class still gets together a couple of times a year and the events run by UCD are very good.

Tell us one thing that most people don’t know about you

I used to play the bagpipes (no kilt jokes please).

What piece of technology can you not live without?

If you ever see me crash my bike, please pause my Strava!

What’s your favourite book?

The Catcher in the Rye would be one of my favourites.

And what is your favourite band?

Arctic Monkeys.

What’s the last exhibition you went to that you loved?

This year’s Venice Biennale was amazing.

What team do you support?

Dublin, but more particularly the hurling team. I can’t wait to see who will replace Ger Cunningham.

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

New York – it’s a city that just has amazing energy.

Name three things on your bucket list

I’d love to climb in the Himalayas, sail around the world and see the Northern Lights.

What charities or causes are closest to your heart?

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is brilliant. And in Vilicom we do a lot of work on promoting engineering with young kids through the Engineers Ireland STEPS programme.

"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."