REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE BUSINESS AND FINANCE BUSINESS PERSON
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE BUSINESS AND FINANCE BUSINESS PERSON AND COMPANY OF THE YEAR AWARDS
Tá gliondar orm bheith anseo libh anocht ag an ócáid seo agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
I would like to begin by thanking Vincent Wall and his colleagues at ‘Business and Finance’ for giving me the opportunity to be part of this celebration of business excellence.
At this stage, Ireland’s economic success has been analysed, scrutinised and debated by every expert in the country, so I am sure you will be pleased to know that I am not going to attempt to add to your statistical knowledge this evening. But I do want to mention one of the factors that has been a cornerstone of that success, and that is the emergence of a culture of entrepreneurism within Irish society. That culture, and all that belongs to it – the foresight to spot new business opportunities, the confidence to seize them, the mentality of risk-taking, the capacity to innovate, the refusal to recognise traditional barriers – all these may seem painfully obvious to our younger people today. But the rest of us know what a sea change has occurred, and how it has transformed not just the landscape of Irish business, but our outlook as a people. We have learned self-confidence, we have learned what it is to experience success, and we have learned also that success deserves to be recognised, praised and celebrated. We are sometimes accused, not without justification, of being a culture which conduces to begrudgery rather than praise. Yet every one of us knows at the human level how draining and defeating is the jibe of the begrudger and how energising the word of praise. If we want to release the full talent potential of our people, if we want to see our country achieve through its people, its full potential, then we have a vested interest in creating and sustaining a culture of offering praise where it is deserved, a culture of acknowledgment of excellence. When people make us proud we should tell them. That is what tonight’s Awards are about.
The winners of both Awards this evening capture the radical “can-do” mood which has consigned the old ‘ceannfaoi’ mood to history. The story of Ryanair needs no introduction. It revolutionised not just the airline business in Ireland, but Irish people’s perception of air travel, of distance, of what was reachable and affordable. All of a sudden, for the business traveller and tourist alike, Britain and the rest of Europe seemed much closer. And I believe that had no small impact on the way that our horizons, within the business community and our society as a whole, have expanded over the past decade.
But this Company of the Year Award is more than just a tribute to past achievements – it is recognition of how Ryanair has continued to innovate, pushing out new boundaries both in the services it provides and the way these are marketed. Its telemarketing centre is the largest in Ireland to be operated by an indigenous company and now, with its launch of an Internet direct booking service, the electronic world is its oyster. I warmly congratulate Ryanair and all of its employees, on its success to date, and its well-deserved Award as Company of the Year.
Speaking of the Internet – and it seems we speak of little else these days – brings me neatly to Baltimore Technologies, and its remarkable Chief Executive Officer, and Business Person of the Year – Fran Rooney. It says much about the explosion of the Internet itself, and e-commerce in particular, that it was as recent as 1996 that Fran and his management team acquired Baltimore Technologies, which then had just 6 employees. Less than 4 years later, Baltimore is a global company with over 600 staff in 26 cities around the world. Under Fran’s leadership, Baltimore has developed world-wide brand recognition for its security software and a customer-base that includes leading financial, e-commerce and telecommunications companies, along with Government agencies, in over 40 countries. It has made history in a number of ways, not least providing the technology back in 1998 for the world’s first ever digital signing of an international communiqué between Bill Clinton and our own Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
Success of the kind that Baltimore has achieved is always a team effort, based on a dynamic management and a gifted and enthusiastic workforce. But it also requires a leader with vision and determination, and those are two qualities which Fran Rooney possesses in abundance, no doubt fostered in the early days of his career in the old Department of Posts and Telegraphs!
Selecting the winners for any Awards is never easy, but it is especially difficult to single out the outstanding Business Person and Company of the Year, at a time when – thankfully - Irish business is achieving such extraordinary success. It’s not a bad complaint to have, but I would like to pay tribute to the judging panel for their wisdom and hard work.
It gives me great pleasure to congratulate once again, the 1999 Business Person of the Year, Fran Rooney of Baltimore Technologies, and the Company of the Year, Ryanair, on their outstanding achievements. Go maire sibh an gradam seo.