EY CEO Outlook: Leadership lessons from the world of sport, with Anne McCormack, Hockey Ireland

Graham Reid: Welcome to the EY CEO Outlook Podcast series, where our host, Richard Curran, chats to some of Ireland's leading CEOs about life and leadership. Hi, I'm Graham Reid, partner and head of Clients and Markets here at EY. In this episode, we welcome Anne McCormack, CEO of Hockey Ireland, the national governing body for field hockey here in Ireland. A powerful advocate of inclusion and equality, Anne talks about her passion for the sport, the importance of role models and what sport has taught her about leadership. So over to you, Richard.

Richard Curran: Anne, you're very welcome. We have lots to talk about in the meeting of sport and its promotion and development. But before we talk about hockey, I want to talk about golf. You played golf to a very high standard when you were younger.

Anne McCormack : Yeah. I suppose I started, my brother asked for golf clubs one Christmas from Santa. My parents didn't play. Nobody in the family played. So it was a bit left field. But he played pitch and putt one summer, and he just got really into it. And he's five years older, so.

Richard Curran: And what age were you?

Anne McCormack : When I started, I mean, I was always kind of around it with him, but I suppose probably 9 or 10 when I really got into it, like, started playing a bit more on the golf course.

Richard Curran: What age were you when you got better than your older brother? That's the key question.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think I was about 13, so it was pretty painful for him. He was 18. So getting beaten by a 13 year old little sister wasn't something he really enjoyed, but it certainly was motivation for me.

Richard Curran: But you went on then to play for Connacht, for Ireland as well.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, yeah. I've been very fortunate with the opportunities that I've been given through golf, played some of the best golf courses in the country and across across the world. So, look, I'm very, very fortunate. But I didn't start being amazing, to be very clear, it was a road, it wasn't something I was very naturally talented at.

Richard Curran: It was hard work.

Anne McCormack : It was hard work. And I kind of think that that's a little bit like how I am with most things I take my hand to, I'm not always the most natural, in the room, but I'm probably somebody who works the hardest in the room. So I usually set my sight on something, and I'll work really hard to get there.

Richard Curran: Determined, gritty, focused, all these sort of things.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, absolutely. And I think if people had said those words to me years ago, I might have taken them as, 'oh my God, they think I'm a bad person'. But actually, no, I think I'm quite comfortable owning, yeah, I am really determined. I am really ambitious and that's okay.

Richard Curran: So with the golf, you grew up in Roscommon, was there a lot of golf played at that time or how far did you have to go? Were there any good courses in the area?

Anne McCormack : I lived in the town. The golf course was probably, I could walk to it. So I used to wheel my little trolley round. There wasn't any girls playing at the time. There was a lot of guys. The women in the club really welcomed me, in fairness, it was probably something I was a little bit embarrassed about. It wasn't the most popular sport in the world. So I always felt a bit, as an outlier in school. I was 'Anne the golfer', we didn't talk about our GAA players that way, but it was always 'Anne the golfer.

Richard Curran: And was some of that because so few women were playing it at the time. You were kind of like a minority within a minority.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, absolutely. And I think... but in lots of ways, that was great. Being from the West, we got seen an awful lot quicker as well. So if you were good, you would get plucked out. So, you know, there was a great group of us from Connacht at the time where we'd all meet up with one another. At the time we'd just jump on the train, we'd meet each other on the train, go up to Irish training, and we just had fantastic fun. They're all still very close friends of mine. And I suppose we were competitive with ourselves. It was an era where Connacht did amazing in golf. We won Inter-Provincials, which might not sound amazing, but for, you know, many decades before that, it would just be constantly the wooden spoon that Connacht would get. And I think it gave hope to an awful lot of people.

Richard Curran: And it's a hugely competitive sport. Was there a sense that, and we can talk a bit about golf at that time as well in terms of gender, but was there a sense that the men didn't know what to make of you in terms of golfing and golfing teams? Was it ever a bit patronising? Did it ever feel that way?

Anne McCormack : I can't say that I ever felt that way, no, but maybe it was because we were in a bubble. At the time that I was growing up, we had the Irish Ladies Golf Union and the Golf Union of Ireland. They didn't really mix, so we were constantly under, we were just playing with girls or we were playing with women. So there wasn't really much crossover, and it would have been the same in the actual golf clubs themselves as well. There wasn't very much mixing with the boys or with the men.

Richard Curran: So what did you want to do? Did you want to be a professional golfer? Was that something you would have liked?

Anne McCormack : Uh, no, to be honest. I, at 16, I could see that some of my friends were dropping out of the sport. And I remember writing a letter into the CEO, Sinéad Heraty, at the time, and I said, unless some things change, we're going to keep losing my friends, and I want to be part of some of the solution to that. And Sinead kindly met up with me, and from the moment I met her, I knew that I wanted to be the CEO of what was the Irish Ladies Golf Union. And for me, that changed something within me that sports administration was a direction I wanted to go in.

Richard Curran: And what age were you at that stage?

Anne McCormack : 16.

Richard Curran: And you knew that you just, this is what I want to do.

Anne McCormack : Yeah. I mean, I've looked back at some of the things that I would have written in our school magazines and yeah, I was very definite that that's what I wanted to do. I really believed in the power of sport, but I equally believed in the impact that you could have in making it better for other people coming behind us and making it better for those that were currently involved in it. And I felt really, really passionate and strongly about that.

Richard Curran: So how do you go about doing that? You've identified the job you want when you're 16, career-wise. You want to make it happen. What did you do?

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think some people would say that it was really persistent. I think the people that were involved at the time would say I was very annoying. So I wrote quite a lot of emails and letters. I knocked on the doors and I said, give me a summer job and let me be the captain of the Connacht underage team. At that time, the average age of the volunteers was, you know, 60 and 70 that were managing these teams. So for me to be coming forward, I was 18 and I said, just let me captain and manage these young girls. I feel like I give something back. I wrote every year until they let me do it. I think I was 21. But yes, Sinead did give me an opportunity. I worked with them for the summers I worked at the Solheim Cup. I worked for very little money because it was never about that for me. It was about getting in, getting a seat at the table. And I was very, very fortunate that people let me have that and let me have the opportunities I did.

Richard Curran: So then you went on to work at a senior level in administration in golf, and it was around that time that the Golf Union of Ireland and Irish Ladies Golf merged. What was that like to see that happen from the inside.

Anne McCormack : We never called it the merging. We called it the coming together. I think...

Richard Curran: Excuse me!

Anne McCormack : That was really important actually, because, you know, there was fears around what it would mean if the women did merge with the men. What would that mean for females within the sport? You know, golf, it's not a secret, it's primarily a male-dominated sport. It's an 80/20 split here in Ireland. So for me, it was such an exciting time to be part of it.

Richard Curran: So what was the difference between a merger and a coming together then?

Anne McCormack : It was starting with a clean...

Richard Curran: So it's a whole new organization.

Anne McCormack : A whole new organization. So, you know, even in terms of the office setup, that was the GUI's office. But when you walked into it as a staff member, it did not look like that anymore. All the pictures were down. It all changed even in terms of how it looked. So the boardroom now became an open plan space. The boardroom moved. So you knew you were entering into something new and I think that was a really important mindset shift for both the staff and the volunteers at the time.

Richard Curran: You would have seen up front in that then, changes within an organization that had its own culture, had its own history. And it's not about, you know, wiping that from the face of the earth, but it is about pushing through quite a lot of change that I'm sure some people would have been unhappy about.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think I probably learned the most about change at that time. So for me, it's always really exciting to be looking forward. But I really learned about how much people really try to control it because of fear. And that's what it is. It's fear of the unknown. It's fear of 'we've always done it this way, and now you want me to do it a different way'. So I think really getting to the crux of that and understanding people's fear, it really helped us all shape, how can we bring people on the journey, but also accepting that some people were not going to remain part of it because actually they weren't comfortable with the change that was coming and actually accepting that that's okay as well. But just being really clear and determined, there was times where it would have been very easy as an organization when Golf Ireland was there to go backwards and say, it's just easier. There's so many people that are annoyed about this that it wouldn't have been the right thing for the sport. And I think that's what I've taken into hockey. It's about what is right for the sport versus what's the easy of the right now.

Richard Curran: But there must have been a bit of a whip hand then for people who didn't really want it to happen or found it just too much change or couldn't get over prevailing views they had. And was some of that around funding the future? Maybe the image that golf had? I mean, I remember a few years ago interviewing Paul McGinley, and he was talking about gender and golf and the perception and the image, and he was more or less saying, if we don't do something about this, we're we're finished.

Anne McCormack : Yeah. I think, you know, when I look back, some of the biggest pieces that people struggled with was that it is a sport that's 80/20. So why was Golf Ireland saying we were going to have a rotating president year on year? Why was it not every eight years that we had a female? Because actually that was proportionate to what was there, but it would have been very, very wrong in terms of what we were trying to do as an organization. We were trying to grow the visibility, and we can't do that if we don't put a marker down. So the board was made up of 40%, a minimum of 40%, and yes, it was a national policy but Golf Ireland went a step further and made sure that across all their subcommittees that there had to be a minimum representation of 30% of both genders. And I think some people really struggled with that because, again, it wasn't proportionate. But but it's so effective.

Richard Curran: You must be a very tough negotiator. You and the others on your side of that.

Anne McCormack : Look, I think I always start from a place of fairness. There are people that come from it from very different angles, and I think there was lots of people in the room that brought lots of different things to it. For me, connection was always really important and really understanding when people were really frustrated and getting angry, my response was never to respond back and say, 'you're wrong. I'm right'. It was to understand why do you feel that strongly about it? And try and talk them round, because most of the time it's a lack of understanding as to why we're trying to do something. Because a lot of times they're just reading it for the first time. But there isn't that background piece as to the why. And I always think if we can centre ourselves in the why, but also then educate other people, it becomes a little bit easier. That does not again mean that people, I suppose agree with it, but they are more likely to accept it.

Richard Curran: So an opportunity came along after working in the whole golf administration area for a number of years to to move to Hockey Ireland to become CEO. You started in last September, was it? And did you know much about hockey in Ireland at the time?

Anne McCormack : No. I'm from Roscommon. There are no hockey pitches in Roscommon. I suppose, I remember distinctly watching the women's team play in the World Cup. I remember exactly where I was when those matches were going on and the pride that I felt. But then I always thought it was a sport that just drifted away, like, why didn't we hear more about it? So it's probably, I always had a curiosity for it. So when I saw the role, that's exactly the feeling that I had. It was it was curiosity, and curiosity as to, you know, there's been quite a lot of change within hockey. Curiosity about that and what the future could look like. So, yeah, for me, it was a very exciting opportunity.

Richard Curran: It's also, I suppose, an example a lot of people talk about from a gender point of view, and women, women in business, they need to see entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs doing incredibly well, people that they can aspire towards. In sport, it's the very same. And you had this success with the women's hockey team in 2018, silver medal, second in the in the World Cup. That that really does make a difference doesn't it, when something like that happens.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, you can see it. And I think soccer has done an amazing job of jumping on the back of that and creating lots of stories that, I think, as a country we've all connected with. You see little girls and boys now walking around in jerseys, you see that stadiums are now full watching the women's matches. I don't believe that hockey probably jumped on it at the time. Jumped on the success, but that's not to say that, you know, when we look forward, all of those opportunities still exist. We still have some of the same people involved. We've now got a team going to the Olympics with the men, and it's about actually sitting down and saying, how can we leverage this to, you know, raise visibility of our sport and stop just talking to our own people, which are the hockey community. Let's widen this out. We've seen people at the qualifiers get behind both of our teams across the entire country, and it's a great thing to unite, I suppose, the country as well, in sport.

Richard Curran: And being able to develop it in that way. Is that what you would see as one of the big challenges when you went into the job?

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think, you know, for me, I've spent a lot of time just really understanding the landscape and seeing where the challenges are, but more importantly, seeing where the opportunities are. I think it can be very easy to get caught in the here and now of what do we need to get. Yes, stabilizing the organization is of short term importance to me, obviously. But, you know, I recently was at an event with the senior women's hockey team and they were asked to write down what they believed was ridiculous for the sport. So anything that they thought was, you know, really ridiculous. And the stuff they were putting down really wasn't that ridiculous. You know, having their own national stadium, it shouldn't be ridiculous. That is something that we should absolutely be striving for. We're doing a lot of work with Sport Ireland around that at the moment. And for me, I love hearing people's visions and their dreams as well. And I think that that motivates me to be the best for the sport.

Richard Curran: In terms of numbers and dates. The sport has been in Ireland since the 1890s. I was reading there the first international game we played was against England and we won 2-0, which was a good start! But England were the ones who deprived the women's team of a place in the Olympics this year, wasn't it? And it was a kind of a controversial thing because England ended up with too many players on the pitch for a few minutes.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think, you know, the impact of that, though, it didn't impact the match. And again, we can get very caught up in those things, but actually it didn't have an impact. You know, the women's team did phenomenally well. There's obviously, you know, they're hugely disappointed but what they did for the sport was phenomenal that week. You know, we had people sending us pictures from schools, from hospitals, from their homes, from their workplaces, who were all getting behind both of our teams. And I think that's the focus that we should, you know, we can get caught up with wins and losses sometimes.

Richard Curran: And the other thing about it, it's an All-Ireland sport, an All-Ireland body. And there are only a few sports, rugby obviously is one and cricket would be another. Hockey is another. That's on a 32 county organized basis.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I'm fortunate in that golf is also 32 counties, so I'm kind of well aware of the dynamics that that brings and the sensitivities that it also brings as well. And I think, you know, obviously awareness is key to that. I think it's, again, something that really sets the sport apart because it is something that unites everybody and it is something that we can all come together and be, you know, really, really proud of. And yeah, there are just so many opportunities. There are challenges because you are dealing with two different jurisdictions in terms of funding as well. But again, if managed sensitively, and if we keep putting the sport at the heart of it and we remove the politics out of it, you know, the sport ends up winning because we've got the best people on the island playing for our country.

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Richard Curran: One of the challenges, I would imagine. And maybe, you know, it's interesting to see what you think. There is a perception that hockey is posh. Is that something you're aware of? You think about, is it?

Anne McCormack : Um, yeah. Look, I've always said this, it's the same for golf. You know, perceptions are often realities as well. So yes, hockey is played in a lot of private schools, but it is, the visibility and, I suppose the accessibility, is increasing all the time. We're seeing more clubs, you know, forming. I went and met some in the west of Ireland and, you know, it's starting with indoor and then branching out. And I think it is becoming more accessible year on year. We're running more and more programmes to make it more accessible. So 'Pick Up A Stick', we're doing a lot more with, diversity and inclusion. So refugee programmes and so yeah, I think the perception is, still there, but I think it's changing.

Richard Curran: And the numbers are interesting. I was just looking at 168 clubs, 280 schools. You know, I wouldn't have realized that it was played in so many schools and there were so many clubs. But one of the difficulties, I'd imagine, is, a pitch, you know, unlike other field sports where you can get a field and you can cut the grass and you can level it out. You need a decent playing surface. How big a challenge is that when it comes to funding?

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think, you know, at the moment we're currently working on, sort of a short term strategy because it's obviously that large scale fund that has just been released by the government, and we're about to release our strategy, which does include that we will build a facilities strategy around that. Because I think you are right; it's a challenge. As a sport grows in popularity, so does the need and the demand on pitches but can we look at being smart about it? Could we link in with tennis and actually use the surface? Is it going to be perfect? No. However, does it provide more opportunities for people to play? Yes. Can we use more indoor, and really rise hockey through indoor? And then we move towards getting more pitches as well, because now we've got a case in point for the high levels of participation. It's a really good business model going forward to government for those. So yeah, I think there's huge opportunity in that space but being very considered and strategically mapping it out is very important for us that they're just not popping up all over the country, where actually it doesn't make any sense.

Richard Curran: When you look at the funding, and it's interesting that as a minority sport, we've actually had huge successes internationally with a lot of smaller sports that are played here. But you must look at some organizations like the GAA, for example, and the scale of what they have in terms of membership facilities, all of that. Is there a bit of envy there at any point?

Anne McCormack : Uh, no. For me, I suppose I don't I don't really envy anybody if I'm being honest or any organization. I think that we can learn from them. So for me, I spend a lot of time speaking to other organizations. So speaking to people in the GAA, what are they doing? Some of it isn't about money. Some of it's about time. I think what the GAA do really well is they connect very well with their local communities. They are part of them. That doesn't cost money. That just requires time. It requires, you know, what is it that people are connecting with? Is it the sport? Is it the people with within it? Is it when they come down, it's a friendly atmosphere. I think that we can learn from all of those things and we can culturally shift because most of it actually is around culture for me. So I definitely wouldn't ever say I envy anybody, but I think we can all work smarter if we work together and we learn from some of these bigger organizations. And what I've found is that most people are quite willing to share, so they share resources. I know that when we were in golf, the GAA, they gave us their ten-point business plan model that they used, and we were able to adapt it and they were quite happy for that to happen. So I think again, you know, collaboration is key here, and just maximizing the opportunities.

Richard Curran: For Irish hockey players, the men are going to the Olympics. Will they be playing against professionals in other countries?

Anne McCormack : Yeah. I actually spoke to the men's coach Mark Tumilty about this and said, you know, how do you feel? So in some cases, you know, there are leagues within countries that are professional, there are clubs that are professional, there are some that are semi-professional. And he made a really good point that we can stand up with the best of them with our programme. So there's, again, no point looking on with envy. We have what we have and we're making the absolute most of it. And I think the programme that he has devised with his players, obviously it's hugely successful. They're going to the Games. And I suppose, it's not about looking on at what they have, or what other countries have and we don't have. It's saying, well, what do we have that's different. And I think that that grit and that passion and that determination is absolutely what they have.

Richard Curran: Would many of the teams they're playing, if they're playing England or they're playing the Netherlands or they're playing Argentina or somebody, what are the chances that they are professionals in those countries?

Anne McCormack : Yeah, some of them are. But then some of our players, I suppose, play in those leagues as well so they're actually, you know, particularly on the men's side, there's quite a lot of them that have gone to clubs and they're playing in those professional leagues over in Belgium. So again, they're bringing back, you know, those experiences as well.

Richard Curran: When you look at the challenges in sport administration, for example, the GAA, such success, it's kind of grappling at the moment with its own scale and its own success between the inter-county championship and the club and scheduling and trying to balance. It's almost breaking out of the boundaries of amateur sport and managing that. In rugby there's been huge success. Professionalism of the sport has been such a positive. In soccer, it's kind of all down to the administration and the way it seems to run and funding and accountability and transparency and all of that. What do you make when you look on from the perspective of Hockey Ireland at all of that, and say, what are the big challenges for you?

Anne McCormack : I suppose at the moment, we are heavily reliant on government funding. So if you look at our women's programme, they are semi-professional. They train together two days a week. And they've gotten that through a carding system that has come on the back of results. The difficulty with that is that you're so reliant then on, and there's a lot of pressure then that goes on it to say you've got to qualify for the Olympics or else, you know, you're carding is at risk. So I suppose the challenge for us is to how do we diversify our finances, that actually it becomes about having the best programme in place for our players and we're not at this nervous stage because they're aware as well, and it's something that I would really like to move away from, that players are that aware of the financial implications because, you know, they're under enough pressure, they put enough pressure on themselves.

Richard Curran: You don't want them thinking about that.

Anne McCormack : It shouldn't be something they think about. That should be something that we as an organization are thinking about. And I think, you know, you look at the likes of sailing who have massively diversified their income through their, they have a kind of a breakaway, which is a lot of philanthropy that goes directly into high performance, into their high performance athletes. And I think that is something that a lot of sports should look to do, because, again, it just gives you more ways to break down those potential challenges that come with cuts in funding, where now all of a sudden you're saying, how are we going to run this program now?

Richard Curran: Having played sport, played golf to a very high standard yourself, and golf, I'm not a golfer, but it strikes me as being such a psychological game. Is that something that stood to you in your career in how you handle situations, manage situations? Do you manage to stay calm, focused?

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I suppose the one thing it definitely does is in golf, you know, no shot is the same. Never mind every hole. And if you get very caught up in, 'I've hit a bad shot' and you mope around with that, you're going to have a terrible round. So for me, it's a little bit like that. When I am in work, you can have a terrible meeting, but I don't really let it continue for the day.

Richard Curran: Shed it and move on.

Anne McCormack : A little bit, but it's a little bit like, do I need to sit in this for a couple of minutes and really own what my problem is with it? What am I going to learn and be do different before I move into the next part? And it's a bit like that in golf. You walk a little bit slower. If you're not really over that previous shot, walk a little bit slower until you are over it, and don't stand over it until you're ready to go again. So I've become, you know, really good at dusting myself down quite quickly and going again and just resetting, I suppose.

Richard Curran: Now there are a set of questions here that we ask all of the interviewees on this podcast, and I'll throw them at you, Anne. You could call it the quick fire round, I suppose. The first one is, what entrepreneur or leader do you most admire? And why?

Anne McCormack : I certainly have a few. From a sporting context, you know, Sinead Heraty, Gillian Burrell, Anne-Marie Hughes, they're all people that massively shaped my career. So there are always people that I really admire and I go to for support. But in terms of an entrepreneur, Bríd Ryan runs a company called Queen Bee Athletics, and I just think... they actually support our women's team and she not only is the product excellent, and it's something that everyone loves, but they also love her. She's got a great character. She's very smart about how she goes around things. She loves sport. That's very clear, and she just connects really well with her audience, and I think that that's something that we could all learn from.

Richard Curran: Favourite book or film?

Anne McCormack : 'The Boy, the Fox, the Mole and the Horse' is my favourite one, because it doesn't require much thinking power, but it does reset me. And it's a book my family keeps saying you should have shares in because I give it to everybody. It's just got such powerful, I suppose, quotes through it. And again, those reset buttons to say we all feel a little bit down at times, but equally we feel really ambitious and equally we can feel really reflective but we must go on. And going on as a team is just so much more powerful than going at it alone. So I think it's always just a really good reminder.

Richard Curran: You're still getting a lot out of that. Do you have a mantra that guides you?

Anne McCormack : 'When they go low, we go high', I think. Particularly in sport, it can be quite political. There can be a lot of things slapped at you. It's very, very easy to react negatively. For me, I do the complete opposite and I really encourage our team to do the same.

Richard Curran: So it's a bit of a Colosseum, is it, at times?

Anne McCormack : Yeah, I think it's just really important to say, you know, we can stick in that rut of reacting and being defensive, or we can actually say, 'okay, we've heard your point and we accept it, but actually here's how we're going to do it' and I think that that's a much better culture for any organisation to live by.

Richard Curran: Any regrets or mistakes? Career wise.

Anne McCormack : I have to say no. I don't. It's just not something I, again, live in. And maybe that's from golf that I, again, that reset patch I have certainly learned an awful lot. I'm 36. It's not come without its challenges, you know, moving at pace through a career, there's been lots of self-doubt. But there's been a huge amount of learning and, I suppose, growing for me. So there's definitely nothing I would regret.

Richard Curran: Any advice you'd have for someone stepping into a leadership role?

Anne McCormack : I think being really clear on what your values are, and sticking by them, I think it's very easy to get overwhelmed, when you move into, a leadership role. And people kept saying to me, you know, it is really different being a CEO, than being a COO. And they were right; the buck stops with me now. I suppose I'm getting a little bit more comfortable with owning that. And what that what does that mean? But equally, you know, taking my time and not feeling that I have to jump into decisions. If I don't feel comfortable with something, I'll sit with it. And I think that that's fine, because that's something, again, the values piece. There's lots of people that want to rush things because they believe in something. I massively need to understand it before I will take that leap. And that's not about slowing things down.

Richard Curran: That's the golf talking.

Anne McCormack : Yeah, exactly!

Richard Curran: Anne McCormack, it's been a pleasure talking to you about your own career path, from your brother's pitch and putt to running a very successful and growing sporting organization in Hockey Ireland. Congratulations on what you've achieved and the very best of luck in the future. We hope you're enjoying this EY podcast CEO Outlook series. Remember, you can catch previous interviews we've done with lots of other CEOs. Until next time, thanks for listening. Bye, bye.

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