EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.
Insights
Asking the better questions that unlock new answers to the working world's most complex issues.
Services
EY helps clients create long-term value for all stakeholders. Enabled by data and technology, our services and solutions provide trust through assurance and help clients transform, grow and operate.
Industries
Discover how EY insights and services are helping to reframe the future of your industry.
About us
At EY, our purpose is building a better working world. The insights and services we provide help to create long-term value for clients, people and society, and to build trust in the capital markets.
Recent Searches
Trending
-
EY.ai
Artificial Intelligence - The Future Won't Wait
16 Nov 2023 AI -
How can retailers best serve Irish consumers this festive season
Discover how retailers can effectively serve Irish consumers this festive season by understanding their shopping preferences, from free shipping strategies to sustainability trends.
12 Dec 2024 Consumer Products -
CEOs in Ireland leveraging disruption for strategic gain
Our report reveals that CEOs in Ireland are particularly optimistic about managing business costs, revenue growth, and profitability.
14 Nov 2024 CEO agenda
EY CEO Outlook: Putting Irish companies on an international stage, with Leo Clancy, CEO of Enterprise 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.
Related topics
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.”
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.
For your convenience, a full text transcript of this podcast is also available below.
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, Head of Client and Markets at EY in Ireland. This week, Leo Clancy, CEO of Enterprise Ireland, is in the studio. He speaks about the traits that make a great entrepreneur, his love of problem solving and how he's keen to support Irish businesses scale to global levels. It's an absolutely fascinating listen and hope you enjoy.
Richard Curran: Thanks, Graham. Leo Clancy, Chief Executive of Enterprise Ireland, joins me now. You're very welcome. Running Enterprise Ireland, you come in contact with entrepreneurs every day of the week, I'm sure, they're the clients. Have you thought about what entrepreneurship is and from what you've learned from entrepreneurs, do they have certain shared personality traits?
Leo Clancy: They do. No one entrepreneur is the same as another. I think that's the first thing to say, Richard. And one thing that I was reminded of by a really great entrepreneur who's who I trust deeply before I started this job is empathy for entrepreneurs. So, he said; remember, no matter what you see or hear from an entrepreneur, remember empathy for entrepreneurs and how lonely the journey is. And I think that's absolutely right. If you look at the characteristics, I see from great entrepreneurs is ambition. You know, you can call that single minded ambition at times, grit, and relentlessness to get things done, you know. So, I think those are, those are really important characteristics. And I think that's huge for entrepreneurs. If you look at wider characteristics, you know the…you ask the why of entrepreneurs, why are entrepreneurs so driven, so ambitious, so gritty, it’s because they're the people on the hook for this, you know? The people who found a company are the ones that absolutely depend on the thing to succeed more than anyone else involved in their enterprise.
Richard Curran: The buck stops with them and they know it.
Leo Clancy: Yeah. Totally.
Richard Curran: When it comes to entrepreneurial tendencies, did you ever think about being an entrepreneur yourself?
Leo Clancy: I did, yeah. It crossed my mind a number of times. The closest I came was joining loss making company in two, at the end of 2008. I resigned from my 13-year multinational job, which was the only job I'd ever worked in, to join a loss-making start-up. On the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. As employee number 30 of the company at the time. It was about as close as I'd come to being an entrepreneur. But if it's one of the things I regret that I didn't explore sooner in my 20s, it was taking on that entrepreneurial role. And it's something that I wish I'd considered sooner. But I came out of college in the mid-90s, you know, when Ireland was all about security for most people.
Richard Curran: And you had grown up on a farm, Leo, In Tipperary.
Leo Clancy: I had, which is an entrepreneurial enterprise. We don't often give farmers enough credit for the entrepreneurialism that they show, but that's certainly a huge part of growing up on a farm. Understanding where the business is in a given year, seeing the impact that - we were at 25 cow dairy farm, you know, so small farm. My mum worked off the farm as well. But the impact that losing 3 or 4 calves in a year could have on the farm enterprise taught you a lot about business and a lot about the fine margins.
Richard Curran: Did you ever want to continue with farming when you were growing up? Was it something you were thinking about? This is all well and good, but I think I'd like to be somewhere else doing something else.
Leo Clancy: No, I never really seriously considered farming, mostly because the size of the farm that we had just wasn't going to be a viable career option for me. I did think about being a vet, actually. I loved I loved the interaction with animals when I was younger. I loved actually getting out there and solving things, whether it was, you know, injuries to animals or calving season, you know, those things really motivated me. Unfortunately, my Leaving Cert points were never going to be anywhere close to what was needed for veterinary, so I chose to be an engineer instead.
Richard Curran: Engineering. Did that suit you? Was it something that you were you really enjoyed?
Leo Clancy: I loved it. I wasn't sure about it. The reason I chose Electronic Engineering as it was in the early 90s is that I had two cousins who were successful electronic engineers, and that was probably as far as I got in my thinking, Let's choose this. The two lads seem to have done fairly well in this thing. And electronic engineering, if you're from rural South Tipperary, wasn't as obvious a choice as it might have been otherwise. So, if I hadn't had those peer reference models, I mightn't have chosen it. It did suit me though. I found what I loved and particularly when I got into working post college, is the problem solving, you know? The ability to have something that you're facing that's potentially catastrophic to the project or that needs to be solved that you can apply your intellect to and actually get through and come up with a solution.
Richard Curran: And I suppose from farming to engineering and problem solving and into leadership and management, there is a continuity there about problem solving, about facing up and making decisions?
Leo Clancy: There is and there's a lot about maturity as well and how you take responsibility. My dad died when I was 14. I was the oldest of three on the farm at the time, so ended up with my mum taking responsibility for how do you manage a dairy herd and you know? How do you dig in and get the work done that needs to be done and make things happen? So, I think that teaches you a lot about life, and it's something I never forgot when I was when I worked with Ericsson, was the multinational I worked with. It was a wonderful company to work with, great technical education, great strategic firm, but great opportunities to lead. In 1998, I was 24 and I was leading a team of five people in Egypt commissioning a new network. You know, that's the kind of responsibility you were given if you were up for it.
Richard Curran: Were you winging it a bit there, Leo, no?
Leo Clancy: I was, yeah, on, on all aspects, the technical and the leadership, but I was tech lead and manager of, of a team of five. So, it was it you’re winging it all the time. I'm still winging it, Richard. Every day of the week so. So, I don't think that ever stops.
Richard Curran: You're not alone. And you were in Abu Dhabi as well, so you had a bit of time in that part of the world. Did you enjoy that?
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I loved the Arab world and I came to appreciate the best of Arab culture, you know, which is hospitality, friendships, relationships. You know, there are lots of things that people don't like about the Arab world, but there's a deep regard for people and a deep, deep respect for friendship and relationship that you don't get in. You get in a lot of places in the world, but not as not as much as in the Arab world generally.
Richard Curran: You must have had an appetite or an ability in relation to management and leading people, if at that age you were in charge of a team of five in another country. Was that something you embraced or were you sort of the reluctant manager?
Leo Clancy: Yeah, it's interesting. The reluctant manager. I love the engineering piece, so I love the cutting through a problem, getting something working. The great thing is I always say about doing a bit of work at home on a project in the garden is it's still there the next morning after you've done it, which isn't the way with a lot of intellectual work that you do today. But it was the same with engineering. Once you can see a definite result, you know, which isn't the case often with leadership. Leadership is about is about trying to inspire results through others. And that's harder when you're used to fixing individual problems yourself. But I was a reluctant manager. I had a couple of projects like that where I was called on to lead, took up leadership roles that came close to burnout, if I'm honest, and then stood back from taking a formal role. So, it was probably 4 or 5 years after that before I took on my first formal line management job.
Richard Curran: So, after Ericsson's you left the day Lehman's collapsed. You went to E-Net after that?
Leo Clancy: Yeah.
Richard Curran: Which was, which was an interesting it was. It was a state project, but it was a private, privately owned company.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, we were fully private. We operated a state piece of infrastructure, which was the metropolitan area networks under a public private partnership. And it was it was a fantastic introduction to well, for me, the motivation was to join a telecoms operator because I'd worked for a vendor and global services. It was a different aspect of telecoms industry, which I'd spent a long time in, but a phenomenal growth journey for us over time. I worked there for nearly five years, and we built a wonderful business which was sold to private equity just around the time I exited.
Richard Curran: And after that you went to IDA Ireland. Was that a bit of a culture shock to go private sector to public sector?
Leo Clancy: Not as much as you think. IDA. Well, I if I start with where I'd come from. You know, I'd been in a large multinational and large multinationals are bureaucratic at times, you know, are a lot of the time. So, I think people often overestimate the bureaucracy gap between public sector and private and certain private sector organisations. The first thing to say. Um... Second is E-net was a PPP, so was operating a PPP. So, I'd had a really good experience of working with government officials. I understood the constraints that they worked under, even though we were private. So that helped a little bit. It was like an inroad or a gateway role towards public sector. But then lastly, IDA is an organisation that is intensely private sector in its outlook, as is Enterprise Ireland.
Richard Curran: And IDA Ireland has such an incredible track record and inevitably it attracts a lot of attention because of the success and the role of foreign multinational investment in Ireland and the contribution to the economy. People tend to assume they're here for the tax and other things as well. Are they here for the tax?
Leo Clancy: The tax is a part of it for certain companies and not for others. So that's certainly a blend. But actually, the proposition is much more than that. You know, I think we talk about talent a lot and it's true. You know, the talent you can...you can access in Ireland as a multinational is phenomenal. And it's phenomenal because of, you know, if you think back to when tax might have been the dominating factor in decisions in the 70s and 80s, that might have been the foundational reason for companies to come in, but they started to build teams then that could operate their businesses. And the heritage of those teams continues. And it's like an accumulator, you know, we're gathering more and more of that talent through more and more industry cycles over time. So, we do become an almost unique place in the world to operate your business from a talent perspective. The other huge one is access to European markets. You know, that is being English speaking, inside Europe, ability to trade across Europe, do business from one location in in respect of all your European markets. That is huge.
Richard Curran: And that scale that we have built through those multinationals, what you're saying is that really that builds a momentum in itself and that's something that no doubt will apply and does apply to Enterprise Ireland and Irish entrepreneurship and enterprise. And we can talk about that in a moment. But around multinationals, and IDA, is, is Ireland an easy sell? Therefore, when you put together the suite of things that we have to offer to multinationals, particularly in the tech sector, I know there's been a bit of a bit of a slowdown more recently, but generally, is it an easy gig?
Leo Clancy: I'd say it's not an easy gig. If I if I said that, I'd be betraying the eight years I spent at IDA. But is Ireland an easy sell? It's certainly a wonderful sell. You know, it is an easy sell compared to many other locations. And for a couple of reasons. We've had a policy ecosystem that has been rock solid on business, you know, so Ireland has been about business. If you look at our public perception of things, like our 12.5% corporation tax rate, acceptability of that, you talk about the policy ecosystem, the focus successive governments have had on making it easy to do business, to start businesses, to have access to banking and aspects like that. It's huge, the talent base, the European access. But it all comes back for me to stability. You know, in a world that can at times be up and down. And when you see other jurisdictions changing their minds about how they want to do business, that certainty of policy and the stability and the evidence that you see through IDA and Enterprise Ireland of real estate investment to a scale that's unheard of on a per capita basis in nearly any other place in the world.
Richard Curran: What about the future for foreign direct investment? Do you think we're at a bit of a crossroads where perhaps some of the things that worked for us in the past won't work? Or as you say, if that stability is there, that goes a long way towards making sure the pipeline keeps working and they keep coming.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I've been two years out of IDA now, so I'm not as day to day familiar with it, but the evidence I see is what I'd expect. Continuing flow of really strong investments increasing in value. We had Intel's announcement, we've seen...we had an announcement with HP along with two really great Irish companies announcing new jobs. Lots of companies that have made Ireland their home are continuing to build it out. And we're a I think we're going to continue to be a leader in foreign direct investment. I think the sector is going to continue to grow significantly and substantially and it will be huge value to Ireland into the future.
Richard Curran: So, then we come to Irish Enterprise and to Enterprise Ireland and the decision to move over into that. When the old IDA was split up in the 1990s into the IDA Ireland and what was Forbairt and became Enterprise Ireland. Whoever was doing the Forbairt Enterprise Ireland job, that was seen as the tougher option because it takes it takes a long time to build businesses up from the ground, doesn't it?
Leo Clancy: It does. It does. And the organisation's done a phenomenal job. I think just over 8 billion of exports in 1998, it's now 32 billion. And that's down to the clients. It's down to the companies that have built that export base. But it's also down to a wonderful team at Enterprise Ireland that have, over 25 years, supported companies from thinking about starting a business all the way through to some of our largest PLCs. So, I think it's it is tough. It is the tougher end of the job in terms of company development. But every job is tough, you know? I don't I don't think that's to take away from the effort that IDA does. I think IDA does a phenomenal job. It's a really tough job. But the dividends probably per unit of effort are higher, you know? Whereas it is harder yards working in in an enterprise in Ireland in terms of growing businesses but amazing success stories that we're seeing.
Richard Curran: And when you came into Enterprise Ireland, what did you see as the big priorities? What was most on your mind that you wanted to advance and to achieve?
Leo Clancy: So, for me, it's about an organisation that functions for our clients, you know, and having great people in the organisation, continuing to support them with good tools and methods of doing their jobs, making sure we're an employer of choice for those who we want to join. Enterprise Ireland is a huge priority, but all in service of clients. 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. So, which is jobs and economic investment and impact here in Ireland.
Richard Curran: One of the problems we've had is when you compare Irish entrepreneurship, let's say over the last 20, 30 years with the likes of Germany, where they have these German enterprises, family-owned firms, the Mittelstand, and those businesses tend to endure for a very long time. There is a tendency among Irish entrepreneurs to sell the business. Do you think that's something that we need to look at? Are Irish entrepreneurs selling too quickly?
Leo Clancy: It depends on, I would say, the entrepreneur, it depends on the sector. You know, I was up at Combilift's 25th anniversary celebrations at their site in Monaghan. Incredible Irish success story. And Martin is absolutely committed to the business. And Robert, in terms of the business they started 25 years ago, they're still driving on and creating success. So, there's a huge number of companies like those and much longer standing firms like PM Group celebrated their 50th anniversary this year as well. So, you've got you've got huge amounts of huge amounts of growth in certain sectors. I think in tech it's been true. And med tech, that companies tend to get sold sooner, but that's true the world over. I think what we're missing, though, is a couple of those outliers that have really gone on to global scale. And we had it with some of our IPOs which were subsequently sold on like Iona, Baltimore in the late 90s. We have seen Icon PLC, which IPO'd 25 years ago go, from strength to strength as an Irish multinational. But we haven't seen new IPOs and the emergence of new global Irish tech firms. And that's something I'm particularly interested in in terms of what we can do to help companies across all sectors, but particularly tech and med tech scale globally.
Richard Curran: Does that boil down to the individuals and their own desire or ability, depending on what their product is and what their service is to keep on going and not have to raise new capital by selling an important stake in the company?
Leo Clancy: It's sometimes ambition, I think, much less so, though I think the ambition levels among Irish entrepreneurs are at their highest level. And the anecdotes I hear from people because I'm relatively new to the sector, two years in, but I think there's a growing consensus that the ambition levels to grow and scale businesses globally out of Ireland is higher than it's ever been. I think the structural factors, even from very early on in terms of the kinds of finance you take on and how you structure your ownership in the business can make it very hard for entrepreneurs to stay in. And then there are factors like access to capital, access to markets, ability to scale your technology solution that will decide whether or how you continue to grow your business. So, it's very complicated. I'd say it was boiling it down. It's probably the key ingredients of the leaders of the future we hope to see will be the ambition of the founders to stay in. The advice that they get and take in terms of how they structure the funding of their business, the access to that funding, and then the support that they put around themselves in terms of mentors and investments they make into their business. We often see businesses that don't take enough money on early enough to drive their business on to the scale they need to succeed. If that happens, you can be overtaken by a global competitor with more money, just frankly.
Richard Curran: And it's a problem that was at the very beginning that comes back to haunt you later on?
Leo Clancy: Can be or just along the way, you know, just how you develop your business. One of the key things we see as a real differentiator is the ability to innovate and create differentiated products versus your competition. That's just a huge factor for business, which I don't think we've focused enough on actually in Ireland. And a real key discriminator if you get it right.
Richard Curran: Leo, we've talked about your career, your background, joining Enterprise Ireland and your priorities for the job. I want to talk to you about the future of entrepreneurship…do you think that we're in a good place given a lot of the international uncertainty that's out there, whether it's geopolitical, whether a lot of changes going on? Do you think we're in a good place to build on what we have and to create a whole a whole new wave of entrepreneurs that that will have that sort of momentum?
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I do. I think there's a huge amount of repeat entrepreneurship happening. And again, a little bit like the multinational side, there's a flywheel effect here as we get more entrepreneurs starting exiting businesses, growing their next venture. There's an increasing base of people available to do that. There's we're increasingly a great location to choose to come to and start a business. We're seeing good evidence of that. And we have that base of multinational companies with people who want to who've made a little bit of money, perhaps, they've built a good career. They want to experience something a little bit different on the entrepreneurial side. And crucially, we have the kids coming out of college now who aren't as I was looking for a secure job as their first next destination out of college. They're open to try something. And we've done a partnership with the Irish Universities Association this year where we've been encouraging kids to think about look at your 20s. Your mid 20s are a time you can actually experiment and experience that you get in a small company, whether as the lead entrepreneur or working within an entrepreneurial company is something that will stand to you no matter where you go.
Richard Curran: What about women entrepreneurs? Do you think we could do better in having more of them? We've definitely seen a change and positive change and improvement in that, but we're still, still a long way off where it should be or could be.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, we are a long way off in various respects, but we are improving. So, the good news is, and I don't have the stats quite to hand, so I'll definitely get this wrong, but in the last about ten years we've gone from just over 10% of our high potential start-ups funded, founded by women entrepreneurs to well over 30% now. And we see that trend increasing. What we also see is that when female entrepreneurs do apply for a program like our recent Pre-seed Start fund, they are more successful than their male counterparts. So, if I can use this this show as a shout out and a clarion call, I think when women do put their minds to entrepreneurial applications, setting out a business plan, they tend to succeed more than men.
Richard Curran: Women entrepreneurs that I've spoken to over the years have tended to say one of the problems was that there weren't enough heroes or heroines to look up to. And it improves the more women go into business and set up businesses. But the other thing that they will often say is that a lot of the women entrepreneurs don't have the same level of confidence and ambition that their male counterparts have. So, they'll reach a certain point or scale and not move on to the next level.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I am not sure I agree with that as a universal truth. You know, I think actually the starting point, I'd worry more about just the point of taking the leap to start a business, particularly something more tech hi tech. And there is a significant debate about, you know, the attitudes of particularly venture capital towards women. So, I think I think that's starting feels like a bit more of the confidence step to get over. The women I know who are running phenomenal businesses are every bit as confident as their male counterparts. I'd say, yeah.
Richard Curran: And they have that track record as well. Your own leadership style, Leo, when you look back at the farm, the engineering, you know, has that influenced how you do the job at Enterprise Ireland?
Leo Clancy: I think everything you do in your life influences how you approach a job. Um, I think being straight with people and there's some great moments along the way, you know, where you learn things that are just step changes to your performance. The best advice I ever got from a leader was to, um, was to tell my manager what was on his mind. Or what was on my mind. Sorry. So just to be straight. And because just the lack of time available for upward management or massaging facts or trying to tell a story, you know, that was a wonderful piece of leadership advice. There's lots of other advice like that that's contributed to my leadership style over time. But I think honesty with people, you know, making sure that you respect people for who they are, those kinds of core principles have to be in you. And then after that, you learn a lot of things along the way.
Richard Curran: And in Enterprise Ireland, it's a complicated stakeholder mix, isn't it? Because you've got entrepreneurial clients of all sizes, you know, from the local enterprise office clients right up to higher growth companies. You also have civil servants, politicians, ministers. You've got the board. It's quite a mix. Is it complicated, do you have to be good at politics?
Leo Clancy: Not at politics. No. I think you've got to be good at explaining what it is you do. And you can always get better at this. I was talking to someone last week who said they're on their 1800th iteration of their pitch deck for their for themselves and the company that they run. And I think that's the way you need to think about things. You've got to be really clear about what your core mission is, regardless of who you're talking to. And then you do have to, I wouldn't say adapt the message for them, but make sure that you're telling the message in a way that's understandable and relatable. And that's one of the big failures I see that people tend to tell their story in a way that they understand it themselves as opposed to tell a story in a way that they're assuring that the listener can hear them properly.
Richard Curran: If there was one thing in particular that we could do better or need to focus on to develop entrepreneurship in Ireland in the years ahead, what do you think it would be?
Leo Clancy: I think it's having a framework for scaling global companies out of Ireland, and these are moon shots. You know, you'll succeed with a small number and a small proportion.
Richard Curran: What do you mean by a framework for it?
Leo Clancy: So, a good playbook for entrepreneurs. So, if I'm an entrepreneur starting a business today, what's my. And I want to be um, I won't use an entrepreneurial name from a global, but if I want to be Google of my industry, what's the playbook I follow? What are the do's and don'ts along the way? Where do I where do I look at creating success? What are the potential pitfalls? Who can help me? And there's a huge and growing ecosystem. Ernst and Young has Entrepreneur of the Year. I was at an Endeavor event last night. You know, there's any amount of infrastructure, YPO, there's ourselves. So, making sure that that entire ecosystem works on behalf of the entrepreneur and that we have a clear path for entrepreneurs to follow. I think that's probably the big one. And that sounds very general. Within that, I would say the financial models for scaling global companies are probably the most important thing. The go to market models for growing companies depending on your sector. And there's a there's a number of different playbooks for how you go to market depending on what your sector is. I think those are probably the two biggest ingredients.
Richard Curran: Well, Leo, there are a series of questions that I ask all of our guests on this podcast. You could call it the quickfire round and I'll fire them at you. The first one is: What CEO or entrepreneur do you most admire and why?
Leo Clancy: Chuck Robbins of Cisco is the CEO I've met who most impressed me because we he was, he was probably one of the most gracious people I've ever met, despite seniority and despite, um, despite things that were going on for him at the time, took the time out to help us with things. But I was immensely impressed by Chuck when I met him about six, seven years ago.
Richard Curran: Oh, interesting. Your favourite book or film?
Leo Clancy: Favourite book is Lord of the Rings, and my favourite film is The Godfather. I watched it recently just to satisfy myself that was still the case.
Richard Curran: The original?
Leo Clancy: Oh, the original. Yeah. I did watch The Godfather III the last week and I was. Yeah, yeah. I'd still go with the original.
Richard Curran: It's, it's one and two are close but it's, it's hard to go for three. It's just not up there.
Leo Clancy: Hard work. Yeah.
Richard Curran: Do you have a mantra in business something that guides you?
Leo Clancy: Um, in terms of mantra, I think, um, I think being straight with people is, is most important. Letting people know where you're at and when.
Richard Curran: Is that difficult or liberating?
Leo Clancy: Liberating.
Richard Curran: When you're totally straight?
Leo Clancy: Liberating. It's the only way back to my point earlier was the best feedback I've ever had. It just clarifies things completely that you can focus on the problem then you're not focusing on a live told or a way you've spun something. You're actually working, you're sharing it. And if you do that in the context of honesty and integrity, it can be immensely powerful to tell people exactly where you're at.
Richard Curran: When you finish this job, what would you like people to say about what you achieved and how you did it?
Leo Clancy: I'd like people to say I advanced the cause of industry in Ireland. That we that that we now have a stronger Irish enterprise base as a result.
Richard Curran: Your biggest mistake or regret?
Leo Clancy: Biggest regret is probably not exploring entrepreneurship in my 20s. But, um. But with that, I always think regret is the most useless emotion, so I don't have too many regrets.
Richard Curran: Don't go there. Don't dwell on it too long.
Leo Clancy: Yeah.
Richard Curran: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs or CEOs starting out?
Leo Clancy: Um, I think work out what your priorities are very early on, you know, and ensure that the work that you're doing contributes to those priorities and a very few. So, I've had mentors who have said one or at most three, and at the moment I have probably 5 or 6 or 7. So I'm not doing a great job at this point. But I think you have to be clear about priorities and you have to be clear also about the vision that you put behind them in terms of how you bring the organisation with them.
Richard Curran: I love that idea that straight talking is liberating as well. Leo Clancy, Chief Executive of Enterprise, Ireland. As someone who talks to entrepreneurs all the time and hears what they have to say about EI and what it has done. I think the organisation has done an incredible job and thank you very much for joining us on this podcast. We hope you are enjoying this EY Podcast, CEO Outlook Series. Remember, you can catch previous interviews we've done with CEOs like David McRedmond of An Post, Tony Smurfit of Smurfit Kappa Group, Imelda Hurley of Coillte and Steve Cutler of Icon. Until the next time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
Richard Curran: Thanks, Graham. Leo Clancy, Chief Executive of Enterprise Ireland, joins me now. You're very welcome. Running Enterprise Ireland, you come in contact with entrepreneurs every day of the week, I'm sure, they're the clients. Have you thought about what entrepreneurship is and from what you've learned from entrepreneurs, do they have certain shared personality traits?
Leo Clancy: They do. No one entrepreneur is the same as another. I think that's the first thing to say, Richard. And one thing that I was reminded of by a really great entrepreneur who's who I trust deeply before I started this job is empathy for entrepreneurs. So, he said; remember, no matter what you see or hear from an entrepreneur, remember empathy for entrepreneurs and how lonely the journey is. And I think that's absolutely right. If you look at the characteristics, I see from great entrepreneurs is ambition. You know, you can call that single minded ambition at times, grit, and relentlessness to get things done, you know. So, I think those are, those are really important characteristics. And I think that's huge for entrepreneurs. If you look at wider characteristics, you know the…you ask the why of entrepreneurs, why are entrepreneurs so driven, so ambitious, so gritty, it’s because they're the people on the hook for this, you know? The people who found a company are the ones that absolutely depend on the thing to succeed more than anyone else involved in their enterprise.
Richard Curran: The buck stops with them and they know it.
Leo Clancy: Yeah. Totally.
Richard Curran: When it comes to entrepreneurial tendencies, did you ever think about being an entrepreneur yourself?
Leo Clancy: I did, yeah. It crossed my mind a number of times. The closest I came was joining loss making company in two, at the end of 2008. I resigned from my 13-year multinational job, which was the only job I'd ever worked in, to join a loss-making start-up. On the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. As employee number 30 of the company at the time. It was about as close as I'd come to being an entrepreneur. But if it's one of the things I regret that I didn't explore sooner in my 20s, it was taking on that entrepreneurial role. And it's something that I wish I'd considered sooner. But I came out of college in the mid-90s, you know, when Ireland was all about security for most people.
Richard Curran: And you had grown up on a farm, Leo, In Tipperary.
Leo Clancy: I had, which is an entrepreneurial enterprise. We don't often give farmers enough credit for the entrepreneurialism that they show, but that's certainly a huge part of growing up on a farm. Understanding where the business is in a given year, seeing the impact that - we were at 25 cow dairy farm, you know, so small farm. My mum worked off the farm as well. But the impact that losing 3 or 4 calves in a year could have on the farm enterprise taught you a lot about business and a lot about the fine margins.
Richard Curran: Did you ever want to continue with farming when you were growing up? Was it something you were thinking about? This is all well and good, but I think I'd like to be somewhere else doing something else.
Leo Clancy: No, I never really seriously considered farming, mostly because the size of the farm that we had just wasn't going to be a viable career option for me. I did think about being a vet, actually. I loved I loved the interaction with animals when I was younger. I loved actually getting out there and solving things, whether it was, you know, injuries to animals or calving season, you know, those things really motivated me. Unfortunately, my Leaving Cert points were never going to be anywhere close to what was needed for veterinary, so I chose to be an engineer instead.
Richard Curran: Engineering. Did that suit you? Was it something that you were you really enjoyed?
Leo Clancy: I loved it. I wasn't sure about it. The reason I chose Electronic Engineering as it was in the early 90s is that I had two cousins who were successful electronic engineers, and that was probably as far as I got in my thinking, Let's choose this. The two lads seem to have done fairly well in this thing. And electronic engineering, if you're from rural South Tipperary, wasn't as obvious a choice as it might have been otherwise. So, if I hadn't had those peer reference models, I mightn't have chosen it. It did suit me though. I found what I loved and particularly when I got into working post college, is the problem solving, you know? The ability to have something that you're facing that's potentially catastrophic to the project or that needs to be solved that you can apply your intellect to and actually get through and come up with a solution.
Richard Curran: And I suppose from farming to engineering and problem solving and into leadership and management, there is a continuity there about problem solving, about facing up and making decisions?
Leo Clancy: There is and there's a lot about maturity as well and how you take responsibility. My dad died when I was 14. I was the oldest of three on the farm at the time, so ended up with my mum taking responsibility for how do you manage a dairy herd and you know? How do you dig in and get the work done that needs to be done and make things happen? So, I think that teaches you a lot about life, and it's something I never forgot when I was when I worked with Ericsson, was the multinational I worked with. It was a wonderful company to work with, great technical education, great strategic firm, but great opportunities to lead. In 1998, I was 24 and I was leading a team of five people in Egypt commissioning a new network. You know, that's the kind of responsibility you were given if you were up for it.
Richard Curran: Were you winging it a bit there, Leo, no?
Leo Clancy: I was, yeah, on, on all aspects, the technical and the leadership, but I was tech lead and manager of, of a team of five. So, it was it you’re winging it all the time. I'm still winging it, Richard. Every day of the week so. So, I don't think that ever stops.
Richard Curran: You're not alone. And you were in Abu Dhabi as well, so you had a bit of time in that part of the world. Did you enjoy that?
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I loved the Arab world and I came to appreciate the best of Arab culture, you know, which is hospitality, friendships, relationships. You know, there are lots of things that people don't like about the Arab world, but there's a deep regard for people and a deep, deep respect for friendship and relationship that you don't get in. You get in a lot of places in the world, but not as not as much as in the Arab world generally.
Richard Curran: You must have had an appetite or an ability in relation to management and leading people, if at that age you were in charge of a team of five in another country. Was that something you embraced or were you sort of the reluctant manager?
Leo Clancy: Yeah, it's interesting. The reluctant manager. I love the engineering piece, so I love the cutting through a problem, getting something working. The great thing is I always say about doing a bit of work at home on a project in the garden is it's still there the next morning after you've done it, which isn't the way with a lot of intellectual work that you do today. But it was the same with engineering. Once you can see a definite result, you know, which isn't the case often with leadership. Leadership is about is about trying to inspire results through others. And that's harder when you're used to fixing individual problems yourself. But I was a reluctant manager. I had a couple of projects like that where I was called on to lead, took up leadership roles that came close to burnout, if I'm honest, and then stood back from taking a formal role. So, it was probably 4 or 5 years after that before I took on my first formal line management job.
Richard Curran: So, after Ericsson's you left the day Lehman's collapsed. You went to E-Net after that?
Leo Clancy: Yeah.
Richard Curran: Which was, which was an interesting it was. It was a state project, but it was a private, privately owned company.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, we were fully private. We operated a state piece of infrastructure, which was the metropolitan area networks under a public private partnership. And it was it was a fantastic introduction to well, for me, the motivation was to join a telecoms operator because I'd worked for a vendor and global services. It was a different aspect of telecoms industry, which I'd spent a long time in, but a phenomenal growth journey for us over time. I worked there for nearly five years, and we built a wonderful business which was sold to private equity just around the time I exited.
Richard Curran: And after that you went to IDA Ireland. Was that a bit of a culture shock to go private sector to public sector?
Leo Clancy: Not as much as you think. IDA. Well, I if I start with where I'd come from. You know, I'd been in a large multinational and large multinationals are bureaucratic at times, you know, are a lot of the time. So, I think people often overestimate the bureaucracy gap between public sector and private and certain private sector organisations. The first thing to say. Um... Second is E-net was a PPP, so was operating a PPP. So, I'd had a really good experience of working with government officials. I understood the constraints that they worked under, even though we were private. So that helped a little bit. It was like an inroad or a gateway role towards public sector. But then lastly, IDA is an organisation that is intensely private sector in its outlook, as is Enterprise Ireland.
Richard Curran: And IDA Ireland has such an incredible track record and inevitably it attracts a lot of attention because of the success and the role of foreign multinational investment in Ireland and the contribution to the economy. People tend to assume they're here for the tax and other things as well. Are they here for the tax?
Leo Clancy: The tax is a part of it for certain companies and not for others. So that's certainly a blend. But actually, the proposition is much more than that. You know, I think we talk about talent a lot and it's true. You know, the talent you can...you can access in Ireland as a multinational is phenomenal. And it's phenomenal because of, you know, if you think back to when tax might have been the dominating factor in decisions in the 70s and 80s, that might have been the foundational reason for companies to come in, but they started to build teams then that could operate their businesses. And the heritage of those teams continues. And it's like an accumulator, you know, we're gathering more and more of that talent through more and more industry cycles over time. So, we do become an almost unique place in the world to operate your business from a talent perspective. The other huge one is access to European markets. You know, that is being English speaking, inside Europe, ability to trade across Europe, do business from one location in in respect of all your European markets. That is huge.
Richard Curran: And that scale that we have built through those multinationals, what you're saying is that really that builds a momentum in itself and that's something that no doubt will apply and does apply to Enterprise Ireland and Irish entrepreneurship and enterprise. And we can talk about that in a moment. But around multinationals, and IDA, is, is Ireland an easy sell? Therefore, when you put together the suite of things that we have to offer to multinationals, particularly in the tech sector, I know there's been a bit of a bit of a slowdown more recently, but generally, is it an easy gig?
Leo Clancy: I'd say it's not an easy gig. If I if I said that, I'd be betraying the eight years I spent at IDA. But is Ireland an easy sell? It's certainly a wonderful sell. You know, it is an easy sell compared to many other locations. And for a couple of reasons. We've had a policy ecosystem that has been rock solid on business, you know, so Ireland has been about business. If you look at our public perception of things, like our 12.5% corporation tax rate, acceptability of that, you talk about the policy ecosystem, the focus successive governments have had on making it easy to do business, to start businesses, to have access to banking and aspects like that. It's huge, the talent base, the European access. But it all comes back for me to stability. You know, in a world that can at times be up and down. And when you see other jurisdictions changing their minds about how they want to do business, that certainty of policy and the stability and the evidence that you see through IDA and Enterprise Ireland of real estate investment to a scale that's unheard of on a per capita basis in nearly any other place in the world.
Richard Curran: What about the future for foreign direct investment? Do you think we're at a bit of a crossroads where perhaps some of the things that worked for us in the past won't work? Or as you say, if that stability is there, that goes a long way towards making sure the pipeline keeps working and they keep coming.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I've been two years out of IDA now, so I'm not as day to day familiar with it, but the evidence I see is what I'd expect. Continuing flow of really strong investments increasing in value. We had Intel's announcement, we've seen...we had an announcement with HP along with two really great Irish companies announcing new jobs. Lots of companies that have made Ireland their home are continuing to build it out. And we're a I think we're going to continue to be a leader in foreign direct investment. I think the sector is going to continue to grow significantly and substantially and it will be huge value to Ireland into the future.
Richard Curran: So, then we come to Irish Enterprise and to Enterprise Ireland and the decision to move over into that. When the old IDA was split up in the 1990s into the IDA Ireland and what was Forbairt and became Enterprise Ireland. Whoever was doing the Forbairt Enterprise Ireland job, that was seen as the tougher option because it takes it takes a long time to build businesses up from the ground, doesn't it?
Leo Clancy: It does. It does. And the organisation's done a phenomenal job. I think just over 8 billion of exports in 1998, it's now 32 billion. And that's down to the clients. It's down to the companies that have built that export base. But it's also down to a wonderful team at Enterprise Ireland that have, over 25 years, supported companies from thinking about starting a business all the way through to some of our largest PLCs. So, I think it's it is tough. It is the tougher end of the job in terms of company development. But every job is tough, you know? I don't I don't think that's to take away from the effort that IDA does. I think IDA does a phenomenal job. It's a really tough job. But the dividends probably per unit of effort are higher, you know? Whereas it is harder yards working in in an enterprise in Ireland in terms of growing businesses but amazing success stories that we're seeing.
Richard Curran: And when you came into Enterprise Ireland, what did you see as the big priorities? What was most on your mind that you wanted to advance and to achieve?
Leo Clancy: So, for me, it's about an organisation that functions for our clients, you know, and having great people in the organisation, continuing to support them with good tools and methods of doing their jobs, making sure we're an employer of choice for those who we want to join. Enterprise Ireland is a huge priority, but all in service of clients. 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. So, which is jobs and economic investment and impact here in Ireland.
Richard Curran: One of the problems we've had is when you compare Irish entrepreneurship, let's say over the last 20, 30 years with the likes of Germany, where they have these German enterprises, family-owned firms, the Mittelstand, and those businesses tend to endure for a very long time. There is a tendency among Irish entrepreneurs to sell the business. Do you think that's something that we need to look at? Are Irish entrepreneurs selling too quickly?
Leo Clancy: It depends on, I would say, the entrepreneur, it depends on the sector. You know, I was up at Combilift's 25th anniversary celebrations at their site in Monaghan. Incredible Irish success story. And Martin is absolutely committed to the business. And Robert, in terms of the business they started 25 years ago, they're still driving on and creating success. So, there's a huge number of companies like those and much longer standing firms like PM Group celebrated their 50th anniversary this year as well. So, you've got you've got huge amounts of huge amounts of growth in certain sectors. I think in tech it's been true. And med tech, that companies tend to get sold sooner, but that's true the world over. I think what we're missing, though, is a couple of those outliers that have really gone on to global scale. And we had it with some of our IPOs which were subsequently sold on like Iona, Baltimore in the late 90s. We have seen Icon PLC, which IPO'd 25 years ago go, from strength to strength as an Irish multinational. But we haven't seen new IPOs and the emergence of new global Irish tech firms. And that's something I'm particularly interested in in terms of what we can do to help companies across all sectors, but particularly tech and med tech scale globally.
Richard Curran: Does that boil down to the individuals and their own desire or ability, depending on what their product is and what their service is to keep on going and not have to raise new capital by selling an important stake in the company?
Leo Clancy: It's sometimes ambition, I think, much less so, though I think the ambition levels among Irish entrepreneurs are at their highest level. And the anecdotes I hear from people because I'm relatively new to the sector, two years in, but I think there's a growing consensus that the ambition levels to grow and scale businesses globally out of Ireland is higher than it's ever been. I think the structural factors, even from very early on in terms of the kinds of finance you take on and how you structure your ownership in the business can make it very hard for entrepreneurs to stay in. And then there are factors like access to capital, access to markets, ability to scale your technology solution that will decide whether or how you continue to grow your business. So, it's very complicated. I'd say it was boiling it down. It's probably the key ingredients of the leaders of the future we hope to see will be the ambition of the founders to stay in. The advice that they get and take in terms of how they structure the funding of their business, the access to that funding, and then the support that they put around themselves in terms of mentors and investments they make into their business. We often see businesses that don't take enough money on early enough to drive their business on to the scale they need to succeed. If that happens, you can be overtaken by a global competitor with more money, just frankly.
Richard Curran: And it's a problem that was at the very beginning that comes back to haunt you later on?
Leo Clancy: Can be or just along the way, you know, just how you develop your business. One of the key things we see as a real differentiator is the ability to innovate and create differentiated products versus your competition. That's just a huge factor for business, which I don't think we've focused enough on actually in Ireland. And a real key discriminator if you get it right.
Richard Curran: Leo, we've talked about your career, your background, joining Enterprise Ireland and your priorities for the job. I want to talk to you about the future of entrepreneurship…do you think that we're in a good place given a lot of the international uncertainty that's out there, whether it's geopolitical, whether a lot of changes going on? Do you think we're in a good place to build on what we have and to create a whole a whole new wave of entrepreneurs that that will have that sort of momentum?
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I do. I think there's a huge amount of repeat entrepreneurship happening. And again, a little bit like the multinational side, there's a flywheel effect here as we get more entrepreneurs starting exiting businesses, growing their next venture. There's an increasing base of people available to do that. There's we're increasingly a great location to choose to come to and start a business. We're seeing good evidence of that. And we have that base of multinational companies with people who want to who've made a little bit of money, perhaps, they've built a good career. They want to experience something a little bit different on the entrepreneurial side. And crucially, we have the kids coming out of college now who aren't as I was looking for a secure job as their first next destination out of college. They're open to try something. And we've done a partnership with the Irish Universities Association this year where we've been encouraging kids to think about look at your 20s. Your mid 20s are a time you can actually experiment and experience that you get in a small company, whether as the lead entrepreneur or working within an entrepreneurial company is something that will stand to you no matter where you go.
Richard Curran: What about women entrepreneurs? Do you think we could do better in having more of them? We've definitely seen a change and positive change and improvement in that, but we're still, still a long way off where it should be or could be.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, we are a long way off in various respects, but we are improving. So, the good news is, and I don't have the stats quite to hand, so I'll definitely get this wrong, but in the last about ten years we've gone from just over 10% of our high potential start-ups funded, founded by women entrepreneurs to well over 30% now. And we see that trend increasing. What we also see is that when female entrepreneurs do apply for a program like our recent Pre-seed Start fund, they are more successful than their male counterparts. So, if I can use this this show as a shout out and a clarion call, I think when women do put their minds to entrepreneurial applications, setting out a business plan, they tend to succeed more than men.
Richard Curran: Women entrepreneurs that I've spoken to over the years have tended to say one of the problems was that there weren't enough heroes or heroines to look up to. And it improves the more women go into business and set up businesses. But the other thing that they will often say is that a lot of the women entrepreneurs don't have the same level of confidence and ambition that their male counterparts have. So, they'll reach a certain point or scale and not move on to the next level.
Leo Clancy: Yeah, I am not sure I agree with that as a universal truth. You know, I think actually the starting point, I'd worry more about just the point of taking the leap to start a business, particularly something more tech hi tech. And there is a significant debate about, you know, the attitudes of particularly venture capital towards women. So, I think I think that's starting feels like a bit more of the confidence step to get over. The women I know who are running phenomenal businesses are every bit as confident as their male counterparts. I'd say, yeah.
Richard Curran: And they have that track record as well. Your own leadership style, Leo, when you look back at the farm, the engineering, you know, has that influenced how you do the job at Enterprise Ireland?
Leo Clancy: I think everything you do in your life influences how you approach a job. Um, I think being straight with people and there's some great moments along the way, you know, where you learn things that are just step changes to your performance. The best advice I ever got from a leader was to, um, was to tell my manager what was on his mind. Or what was on my mind. Sorry. So just to be straight. And because just the lack of time available for upward management or massaging facts or trying to tell a story, you know, that was a wonderful piece of leadership advice. There's lots of other advice like that that's contributed to my leadership style over time. But I think honesty with people, you know, making sure that you respect people for who they are, those kinds of core principles have to be in you. And then after that, you learn a lot of things along the way.
Richard Curran: And in Enterprise Ireland, it's a complicated stakeholder mix, isn't it? Because you've got entrepreneurial clients of all sizes, you know, from the local enterprise office clients right up to higher growth companies. You also have civil servants, politicians, ministers. You've got the board. It's quite a mix. Is it complicated, do you have to be good at politics?
Leo Clancy: Not at politics. No. I think you've got to be good at explaining what it is you do. And you can always get better at this. I was talking to someone last week who said they're on their 1800th iteration of their pitch deck for their for themselves and the company that they run. And I think that's the way you need to think about things. You've got to be really clear about what your core mission is, regardless of who you're talking to. And then you do have to, I wouldn't say adapt the message for them, but make sure that you're telling the message in a way that's understandable and relatable. And that's one of the big failures I see that people tend to tell their story in a way that they understand it themselves as opposed to tell a story in a way that they're assuring that the listener can hear them properly.
Richard Curran: If there was one thing in particular that we could do better or need to focus on to develop entrepreneurship in Ireland in the years ahead, what do you think it would be?
Leo Clancy: I think it's having a framework for scaling global companies out of Ireland, and these are moon shots. You know, you'll succeed with a small number and a small proportion.
Richard Curran: What do you mean by a framework for it?
Leo Clancy: So, a good playbook for entrepreneurs. So, if I'm an entrepreneur starting a business today, what's my. And I want to be um, I won't use an entrepreneurial name from a global, but if I want to be Google of my industry, what's the playbook I follow? What are the do's and don'ts along the way? Where do I where do I look at creating success? What are the potential pitfalls? Who can help me? And there's a huge and growing ecosystem. Ernst and Young has Entrepreneur of the Year. I was at an Endeavor event last night. You know, there's any amount of infrastructure, YPO, there's ourselves. So, making sure that that entire ecosystem works on behalf of the entrepreneur and that we have a clear path for entrepreneurs to follow. I think that's probably the big one. And that sounds very general. Within that, I would say the financial models for scaling global companies are probably the most important thing. The go to market models for growing companies depending on your sector. And there's a there's a number of different playbooks for how you go to market depending on what your sector is. I think those are probably the two biggest ingredients.
Richard Curran: Well, Leo, there are a series of questions that I ask all of our guests on this podcast. You could call it the quickfire round and I'll fire them at you. The first one is: What CEO or entrepreneur do you most admire and why?
Leo Clancy: Chuck Robbins of Cisco is the CEO I've met who most impressed me because we he was, he was probably one of the most gracious people I've ever met, despite seniority and despite, um, despite things that were going on for him at the time, took the time out to help us with things. But I was immensely impressed by Chuck when I met him about six, seven years ago.
Richard Curran: Oh, interesting. Your favourite book or film?
Leo Clancy: Favourite book is Lord of the Rings, and my favourite film is The Godfather. I watched it recently just to satisfy myself that was still the case.
Richard Curran: The original?
Leo Clancy: Oh, the original. Yeah. I did watch The Godfather III the last week and I was. Yeah, yeah. I'd still go with the original.
Richard Curran: It's, it's one and two are close but it's, it's hard to go for three. It's just not up there.
Leo Clancy: Hard work. Yeah.
Richard Curran: Do you have a mantra in business something that guides you?
Leo Clancy: Um, in terms of mantra, I think, um, I think being straight with people is, is most important. Letting people know where you're at and when.
Richard Curran: Is that difficult or liberating?
Leo Clancy: Liberating.
Richard Curran: When you're totally straight?
Leo Clancy: Liberating. It's the only way back to my point earlier was the best feedback I've ever had. It just clarifies things completely that you can focus on the problem then you're not focusing on a live told or a way you've spun something. You're actually working, you're sharing it. And if you do that in the context of honesty and integrity, it can be immensely powerful to tell people exactly where you're at.
Richard Curran: When you finish this job, what would you like people to say about what you achieved and how you did it?
Leo Clancy: I'd like people to say I advanced the cause of industry in Ireland. That we that that we now have a stronger Irish enterprise base as a result.
Richard Curran: Your biggest mistake or regret?
Leo Clancy: Biggest regret is probably not exploring entrepreneurship in my 20s. But, um. But with that, I always think regret is the most useless emotion, so I don't have too many regrets.
Richard Curran: Don't go there. Don't dwell on it too long.
Leo Clancy: Yeah.
Richard Curran: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs or CEOs starting out?
Leo Clancy: Um, I think work out what your priorities are very early on, you know, and ensure that the work that you're doing contributes to those priorities and a very few. So, I've had mentors who have said one or at most three, and at the moment I have probably 5 or 6 or 7. So I'm not doing a great job at this point. But I think you have to be clear about priorities and you have to be clear also about the vision that you put behind them in terms of how you bring the organisation with them.
Richard Curran: I love that idea that straight talking is liberating as well. Leo Clancy, Chief Executive of Enterprise, Ireland. As someone who talks to entrepreneurs all the time and hears what they have to say about EI and what it has done. I think the organisation has done an incredible job and thank you very much for joining us on this podcast. We hope you are enjoying this EY Podcast, CEO Outlook Series. Remember, you can catch previous interviews we've done with CEOs like David McRedmond of An Post, Tony Smurfit of Smurfit Kappa Group, Imelda Hurley of Coillte and Steve Cutler of Icon. Until the next time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
C-suite podcast series
View the full list of EY CEO and CFO podcasts where our featured experts from the world of business discuss their path to success, and offer insights and analysis on the big issues facing organisations today.