CFO Outlook: Securing a green future, with Marie Joyce, NTR plc

It was the culture of Microsoft that first attracted Anne Sheehan to the company – “It's not about who's the cleverest person in the room. It's about who can be curious, who can learn, who can be creative”. Having spent over 20 years in the technology and telecom sectors working with companies like IBM and Vodafone, Anne has always chosen roles based on the “scale, breadth and depth” of the work to be done and the potential impact she could make for the company and its customers. So, when the opportunity came up to work with a leader in tech that was on an exciting AI journey and whose values aligned with hers, Anne “didn’t blink” and accepted the role of General Manager, Microsoft Ireland. 

Microsoft has a significant presence in Ireland. With over 4000 employees from 97 different nationalities working in roles spanning sales, finance, HR and engineering, the company is, as Anne describes it, like a “mini Seattle” in Dublin. AI is at the core of many of the company’s current products and initiatives and Anne is very optimistic about the positive impact that this technology is going to have and the challenges it will help to tackle. And as Microsoft works to develop AI-driven products, it is also putting into place the necessary frameworks around privacy, security, safety, transparency, and accountability.   

In this episode of the EY Podcast: CEO Outlook Series Anne Sheehan, General Manager of Microsoft Ireland speaks with host Richard Curran about the importance of curiosity, the opportunities that AI can bring and why she's never overthought her career. They also discuss:

·       Anne’s professional experience with IBM and Vodafone and what she learned from the roles and culture. 

·       Why she believes that Irish people are adept at helping to change companies for the better

·       Responsible AI and how Microsoft is working to ensure guardrails are in place

·       Anne’s views on the role AI will play in the Irish education system and why we need to prepare now 

Anne’s business mantra, and what she would like colleagues to say about her when she finishes her current role. 

Ten minutes into the first job interview, Wendy Chang Smith knew that Glanbia was the right fit for her. As someone for whom company culture, values and learning experiences are paramount, Wendy was bowled over by the “wisdom and experience” of the two colleagues on the panel and felt like she had known them for years – “ I was sold, I was ready to join this company.”

But the idea of taking on the role of CFO of Glanbia Performance Nutrition was also very compelling from a business perspective. The company’s main brand, Optimum Nutrition, has been around for over 35 years, is sold in more than 90 countries, and recently became Glanbia’s first billion-dollar brand. Yet despite being the world’s number one sports nutrition brand, its growth potential in major markets like the US is very significant, and this was a challenge that excited Wendy.

In this episode of The EY Podcast: CFO Outlook Podcast, Wendy Chang Smith, CFO of Glanbia Performance Nutrition, joins Jonathan Healy to talk about working in some of the world’s biggest multinationals, her vision for the future of sports nutrition, and why company culture is so important to her. 

They also discuss:

· The three qualities of a highly effective business strategy

· Why she believes that risk-taking is important for generating additional value for the company

· Wendy’s role as global sponsor for the Glanbia Women’s ERG and why Diversity and Inclusion is so important to her

· Glanbia’s investment globally in Research & Development

· Wendy’s time working in with major multinationals including Amazon, Johnson and Johnson, Procter and Gamble, and Kellogg’s.

· Adapting to Irish weather and culture, and why an encounter with a dead jellyfish made Wendy and her family realise that moving to Ireland was the right decision !

On Mairead McCaul’s first day in nursing college, her tutor said something that has always stayed with her: “when you're caring for a patient, you’re in a privileged position and you should always treat them as if they were your mother or your father or your brother or sister or your child”. Mairead carried these words with her throughout her time in nursing and midwifery, working in sales in the laboratory diagnostics sector, and into the position she holds today as MD, Human Health, of one of Ireland’s leading healthcare companies. 

MSD has been in Ireland for over 50-years and the company employs over 3000 colleagues across five different sites around Ireland. Mairead joined the company in 2007 and, having worked in various roles across the company, was promoted into her current role as well as that of Head of MSD Ireland’s Country Leadership Team in 2020. She credits her progression largely to having “managers and a leadership team in MSD that saw something in me that I might not necessarily have seen in myself and really encouraged me to continue to progress.”

In this episode of The EY Podcast: CEO Outlook Series, Mairead McCaul, MD of MSD Ireland Human Heath & Country Leader shares the story of her remarkable journey through the healthcare industry in Ireland. In conversation with host Richard Curran, she talks about growing up on a farm in rural Ireland, her various roles in the healthcare sector, and her vision for the future of patient care. 

They also discuss:

·       The huge significance and impact of the pharma industry in Ireland.

·       Personalised medicine – what it is and its role in the future of healthcare. 

·       Mairead’s leadership style and why she like to always challenge the status quo.

·       Why some medicines manufactured in Ireland are not available to Irish patients, and Mairead’s work on increasing their availability and affordability.  

·       The advice she would give to other business leaders just starting out in the role. 

Carol Phelan has always loved numbers. Growing up on a farm, she understood how the numbers she was learning in school related to the business of the farm and how it scaled. Accountancy was one of her Leaving Cert subjects, but, for Carol, “accountancy was a set of tools that I wanted to work in Business rather than accountancy as the end in and of itself.”

Carol spent the first six years of her career as a consultant , auditing and advising client companies. However this work increasingly led her to “be the person” and become fully involved in the running of a business: “I was walking away from it at the point they were about to go and live and breathe the consequences of their decision, whether it was a new investment or whatever that might be”.

And so began Carol’s career on the frontlines of business, leading to her current role as CFO of Dalata Hotel Group, which operates Ireland’s largest hotel brands, Clayton and Maldron, and is now rapidly growing its presence across the UK and Europe.

In this episode of The EY CFO Outlook podcast, Carol Phelan, CFO of Dalata Hotel Group chats with Jonathon Healy about her love of business, people and company culture, and her role in helping to grow Dalata Group revenues to a record €500m last year. They also discuss:

- Dalata’s successful decentralised model, where the teams in the group’s hotels are empowered to run them as if they are their own, presenting their strategy at a group level annually.

- How Dalata and its leadership and teams navigated the challenges of Covid-19 and related lockdowns.

- Dalata’s success in achieving 50/50 gender parity across its board and executive team.

- Why financial success all starts with hiring the right people, treating them fairly, and building a great company culture.

- Dalata’s rapid expansion across the UK and Europe.

Growing up on a small farm in Tipperary taught Leo Clancy a lot about entrepreneurship. From an early age he understood how to assess the business’s performance in any given year, how to make a profit on tight margins, and, crucially, he learned to “dig in and get the work done that needs to be done and make things happen”. 

Today, Clancy leads an organisation that supports companies all over Ireland to start, grow, innovate and win export sales in global markets. Enterprise Ireland client companies employ almost 220,000 people and are responsible for €32 billion in exports, compared with €8bn in 1998. Clancy credits this success primarily to the businesses that have built the export base, but also to his colleagues in Enterprise Ireland that have helped them to scale internationally for over 25-years.  

“The most important thing for me in my role is that we
serve our clients well and that we keep our eye on the economic prize that
results from that, which is jobs and economic investment and impact here in
Ireland.” 

In this episode of The EY Podcast, CEO Outlook Series, Leo
Clancy of Enterprise Ireland joins host Richard Curran to talk about his love
of entrepreneurship, problem-solving, and leadership and how all three combine
to support his mission to help Irish companies to become global leaders in
their field. They also discuss: 

· Clancy’s background in Electronic Engineering and how it
led to a love of problem solving.  

· The many factors that make Ireland so attractive to
multinational companies, including language, talent, and stability.  

· Enterprise Ireland’s role in encouraging greater levels of entrepreneurship
among women and those in their 20s.  

· Why he was a ‘reluctant leader’ and how straight-talking
and honesty have ‘liberated’ him.  

· Clancy’s vision for advancing the cause of industry in
Ireland and creating a stronger Irish enterprise base as a result. 

In this episode of The EY Podcast: CEO Outlook Series, Deirdre Mortell, CEO of Rethink Ireland, joins host Richard Curran to talk about her passion for social change, the power of people to make positive impact, her vision for a better Ireland, and how this role is helping her to achieve it.

From an early age, Deirdre Mortell wanted to ‘change the world’. A very active participant in student politics, Mortell left UCC with a Masters in Women’s Studies but with no clear sense of what came next and “sort of fell into the non-profit sector and particularly into fundraising”. Today, she leads one of Ireland’s largest social innovation funds, with almost €100m raised and 400 innovations backed.

Rethink Ireland was created by the Irish government following the last economic crash with the aim of restimulating philanthropy during the recession. Having built high-performance teams for non-profits such as Oxfam, Barnardos and Headstrong, and co-founding The One Foundation with Declan Ryan, Mortell was appointed CEO of Rethink in 2014. Her mission is not just to fund the organisations tackling Ireland's critical social issues, it’s also to transform the entire culture of fundraising and philanthropy in Ireland.

They also discuss:

· The most common “demoralising” myths about the non-profit sector

· The culture of philanthropy in Ireland (‘D’ grade, must try harder) and how Rethink Ireland is helping to improve it

· Mortell’s experience in student politics and setting up the political party, The Women’s Alliance

· Creating The One Foundation with Declan Ryan and what they managed to achieve in 10 years.

· Rethink Ireland’s manifesto 2030 – a vision for the Ireland we want to live in

In this episode of the EY CFO Outlook podcast, Ken Bowles of Smurfit Kappa Group discusses the Irish packaging company's recent merger announcement and what it means for their growth.  Also, as he approaches almost 30 years with the company, he talks about why people are at the heart of a successful business and how Smurfit Kappa's focus on sustainability now means the same box is used 25 times. 

In this episode of the EY CFO Outlook podcast, Tom Hickey of mining company Kenmare Resources chats to host Jonathan Healy about becoming a CFO at the young age of 31, the importance of storytelling in business, his love of the natural resources sector and how ESG is at the heart of Kenmare’s operations in Mozambique.     

In this episode of The EY Podcast: CEO Outlook series, Conor Galvin tells host Richard Curran about his unconventional journey to the position of CEO of Dairygold and his long term strategic ambitions for the company. He also shares his unique insights into the current challenges and opportunities facing the food production sector.

When Conor Galvin became CEO of Dairygold in January 2022, it was a period of great volatility and uncertainty. The company’s energy bills had soared by 800% due to rising gas prices and the war in Ukraine. Galvin managed, not only to steer the company through this difficult period, but to oversee a record turnover of €1.65bn, an increase of over 40% from the previous year. 

Growing up on a dairy farm gave Galvin a deep understanding of all aspects of the food production industry and an appreciation for the work involved and the pressures experienced by the whole supply chain. That, combined with later qualifications in science and accountancy, have helped him to build a vision for the future of Dairygold, including new building opportunities in the health and nutrition spaces.

They also discuss:

· Galvin’s education and career experience leading up to Dairygold and what he learned at each step along the way.

· Environmental sustainability and food production – what Ireland does well, where it can improve, and the role that new technologies are playing.

· People management and trying to balance achieving consensus with the imperatives of getting the job done.

· Galvin’s focus on long term value and how he tries to balance the needs of the company today with that of the future.

· The leader that had the most impact on his career and why.

In this episode of The EY Podcast: CEO Outlook Series, Jim Bergin, CEO of Tirlán, tells host Richard Curran the story of his 30-year journey to the top of one of Ireland’s best-known indigenous companies. Jim leads Tirlán during a very significant time for the company, with a recent restructuring from plc to cooperative, the creation of a new investment fund, and record farmgate prices.

Coming from a farming family in Co Kilkenny, Jim Bergin has always understood the language of farmers, the pressures they face, and the values of the farming community. This knowledge has served him well throughout his lengthy career in the agri-food sector. He recently guided Glanbia Co-op as it transitioned to full control of the Glanbia Ireland dairy and grains business and it unveiled a new identity, ‘Tirlán’.

As Ireland’s largest farmer-owned food and nutrition business, Tirlán has a diverse portfolio of leading ingredients, consumer and agri brands, including Avonmore, Kilmeaden, Wexford, and GAIN Animal Nutrition. With a network of 11 high-tech processing facilities, 52 agri-retail branches, and over 11,000 members, the farmer-owned cooperative holds a very important position in the Irish economy. A recent Economic Impact Study by EY showed that Tirlán generated total economic activity of €5.5 billion in 2022. Moreover, it supports over 19,200 direct and indirect jobs spread throughout operations in 17 counties.

They also discuss: 

• How Jim’s childhood as the only son of a small farmer still helps him to carry out his role successfully today. 
• The differences and similarities between plc and cooperative company structures and his recent experience of changing Glanbia plc into Tirlán cooperative. 
• The future of farming – reducing the national herd, incentivising increased biodiversity, and how new technologies will drive greater productivity. 
• How Tirlán is adapting to cater for increasing demand for plant-based products. 
• How Ireland can become less vulnerable to an unpredictable geo-political environment.