Daire’s grandmother could not be more pround of his Cork award
‘MY FRIENDS DON’T READ FORBES, BUT THEY’LL SEE YOU WON THE CORK PERSON OF THE MONTH AWARD’
BALLINCOLLIG man Daire Hickey may be widely regarded as one of the top young ‘movers and shakers’ in the world – but it was winning an award closer to home that really impressed his grandmother.
The Corkman caught up with Daire just before the winner of Cork Person of the Year award was announced and he had no doubt about who was going to win the accolade.
“Let’s be realistic, the O’Donovan Brothers are going to win. Their performance this year has been pretty incredible,” said Daire who was at last Friday’s ceremony with his proud parents Tom and Trish.
While the brothers may have been favourites for the overall award following their heroics at the Rio Olympics, 2016 was also quite a year for Daire.
In January of last year Daire, the co-founder of the global Web Summit, was named alongside actress Saoirse Ronan in the ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ – a prestigious a list of the top young global leaders across a variety of industries.
He joined an elite club of young Irish ‘people who had previously been included on the list including golfer Rory McIlroy, singer Niall Horan, CoderDojo co-founder James Whelton and games designer Terry Cavanagh.
Daire said that which he did not expect to win the 2016 Cork Person of the Year award, he still felt “honoured” to have been given the March monthly accolade.
“It was really flattering. It’s lovely to be recognised by your home town and winning the March award was a nice honour and a great privilege,” said Daire.
He did admit to being somewhat surprised on first hearing that he had won the award.
“Yeah, you kind of potter about doing your own thing and not really thinking about much else. My business partners Paddy (Cosgrave) and (David (Kelly) and I started the summit in 2009. Now we employ about 160 people and run business events across the world,” said Daire.
“I suppose you become blinkered and very much focussed on your business and then something like this comes along. It has been a tough year for me personally as I am recovering from a car crash, so it is really nice to be here at something like this, particularly with my parents,” he added.
Daire said one person who was particularly pleased at his Person of the Month award was his proud grandmother, Margaret Hickey, who he said had shown little or no interest in his Forbes award.
“However, when I won Cork Person of the Month it was a different story. She said to me ‘ listen, sure my friends don’t read Forbes Magazine, but they’ll all see that you were Cork Person of the Month. I’m delighted with that,’” he grinned.
“I suppose you can win all the awards in tyeh world, but that goes to show that there is nothing quite like being houniured in your home place,” he added.