The EY Podcast EY

From the age of sixteen, Anne McCormack knew that she wanted to be a CEO. Having played golf at a high level throughout her childhood, Anne became concerned about the numbers of her peers that were leaving the sport, and realised that the only way to effect change was to hold a leadership position within the sport’s representative organisation. This realisation was the first step in Anne’s long and successful career in sports administration and leadership. After several years worki...

It was a complaint about the quality of a mobile phone that ultimately set Barry Napier on the path to becoming one of Ireland’s most successful technology entrepreneurs. The owner of the company to which Barry complained liked him, and offered him a job, and so began a lucrative career within the technology industry. But it was in 2011, when Barry discovered Cubic Telecom, that everything changed, and after a twelve-year, rollercoaster journey at the helm of the company, Barry has just...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...