Ruairí Doyle: CEO PressReader Vancouver
Ireland is rightfully proud of its iconic brand leaders like Kerrygold, Baileys and Tayto crisps. However, some of our greatest leaders and business brains are to be found heading up corporations abroad. This is true of Ruairí Doyle, who is originally from Wicklow and is now CEO of PressReader Group in Vancouver, Canada. “My background is in news and media but mainly in the technical side,” explains Ruairí. “I started out as a young software engineer in Unison.ie, part of the INM (Independent News and Media) group. Then I became more curious about the project management aspect of things and was interested in how the whole product and business side comes together.
“I set up an offshoot company called ‘GrabOne’ within INM in 2011. It was a successful Groupon clone at a time when bargains were popular after the downturn.” Ruairí then headed off to London to join Google before returning to Ireland in 2017 to establish the Irish operations of PressReader as the General Manager. “I made numerous trips to head office in Vancouver before I eventually transferred there as VP, Product. I was privileged to step into the boots of CEO just last year,” he says, smiling and looking much younger than his 42 years.
He also met his French-Canadian wife, Kim, in Vancouver and they have a two-year-old toddler and another baby on the way. Ruairí says the transition to
Vancouver was fairly smooth, although he misses his family and friends back home. “Kim and I love to travel,” Ruairí says. “We went to Mexico City recently on a babymoon. It’s a beautiful city architecturally and the food is wonderful. However, I do miss the simplicity of travel in Ireland where in a couple of hours you can be in a totally different regional culture — whether it’s Belfast, Donegal or Clare.” Ruairí says the PressReader Group’s primary goal is to develop technology solutions that allow individuals to access reliable content and high-quality journalism while also enabling publishers to expand their reach and connect with a global audience.
The company’s flagship product, PressReader, is an all-you-can-read platform that features more than 7,000 newspapers and magazines in 120 different countries, from the world’s most well-respected newspapers to niche publications covering everything from crocheting to cricket.
“We generally see PressReader referred to as ‘the Netflix or Spotify of newspapers and magazines’,” Ruairí says, explaining that the bulk of PressReader’s business is B2B, with the platform available in hotels, airports, libraries, and cruise ships all over the globe. “Tourists and business travellers are avid consumers of local knowledge and transnational news,” he notes.
“We manage just over 500 staff globally — including 300 in the Philippines at our content processing centre in Manila,” the CEO says. “I work with a fantastic team here of over 200 in Vancouver as well as a small but mighty presence in Dublin.” “Our goal is to continue to bring quality journalism and a diversity of content to a variety of contexts each and every day, solving the insatiable demand for content and helping businesses connect with customers in new and unique ways,” Ruairí says. “And of course, we want to continue to grow our business along the way.”
PressReader’s mission, Ruairí says, is to empower and enrich curious minds. “I believe with all the recent advances in artificial intelligence we are on the cusp of the biggest technology transformation of my generation since the introduction of the Internet. It is going to significantly change business and our responsibility is to engage, interact and utilise these advances in a responsible way.”
“Our opportunity is to continue to offer a quality-content value proposition to readers,” Ruairí says, “and with the advancement of AI, it’s up to news aggregators such as us to demonstrate the content value chain so it can be tracked back to a respected human. We can determine if it’s a well-informed, balanced point of view and not some unreliable, machinegenerated information with an agenda.” “The craft of investigative journalism is key to a thriving democracy,” he says. “I am an optimist, as we have predominantly used technology to propel humanity forward.” “There are lots of wonderful new content creators and amazing publications being launched every day. So, let’s embrace the technology and respect it,” he concludes.