ANNE HERATY
AS FOUNDER of CPL Recruitment, Anne Heraty has been at the coalface of the Irish economy since the 1980s. CPL has flourished since the economic recovery, with revenues up 10pc last year, not least because of Dublin’s vibrant tech and startup scene, she is quoted as saying in Ireland Inc.
“It’s a very exciting time, I would think, in the tech sector here in Ireland at the moment, both within the indigenous tech sector and also within the multinational sector. There’s a phenomenal startup ecosystem and it’s fantastic to see things like TechIreland and Startup Dublin and Startup Ireland ... that whole excitement around building businesses within the tech sector.
“The other thing that really strikes me about our young Irish graduates and entrepreneurs coming through is that they’re thinking global on day one now. They’re not thinking about a home market here, or whatever. They’re thinking about developing products for the global stage. I think it’s fantastic to see that. The combination of the global companies and the local indigenous entrepreneurial startup mindset here, and the skills and capabilities, is creating something quite special.”
Working with fast-growing FDI companies through the 90s was instructive, says Heraty. “Their thinking was different: it was more global, first of all. For us, in an island economy, that was important. They were very export-oriented. A lot of the time there was a big focus on learning and development, in terms of the quality and capability of their people.”
When she started out, it never occurred to Heraty that there were so few female entrepreneurs on the Irish business scene. “It really didn’t,” says Heraty. “It wasn’t something that crossed my mind at all — only when people pointed it out to me. Mind you, subsequently in the years that followed ... I had grown up in a family business; my mother had been quite a driver of that business so I suppose I had a good role model early on and I just never thought it would be any different.
“Like anyone, in the early years of growing the business, I was just very focused on building our own team and building our client relationships and all that — so I didn’t have much time to think about much else: just focused on the business. But as the business grew and developed it’s something that I became much more aware of, and indeed as I was growing my own team — the need for diversity within our own teams. That’s really when it came into focus for me.”