Ronan Murray, the incoming Managing Partner of EY Ireland’s Cork office tells us how his Big Four career progressed from audit to mergers and acquisitions, and gives his take on M&A trends in 2024  Ronan Murray is the incoming Managing Partner of EY Ireland’s Cork office. Kerry-born Murray has lived in Cork for over 25 years, forging a successful career in corporate finance, starting in audit and progressing to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory and services. As Partner, Corporate Finance, Strategy and Transactions, with EY Ireland in Cork for the past two years, Murray has provided strategic advice to Irish companies on acquisitions and disposals. Q. Tell us a bit about your background and education?  I grew up in Tralee and I’m still firmly connected to family, friends and clients in Co. Kerry, but I have lived and worked in Cork for a long time. It’s a fantastic place and my two daughters will be proud Corkonians! I started out studying commerce at University College Cork (UCC), graduating in 2001 with a commerce degree and returned to UCC in 2010 to complete an Executive MBA with a focus on developmental leadership education in a knowledge economy.  I met my wife Aideen Creedon, Head of Internal Audit at UCC, while we were both on our Chartered Accountants Ireland training contracts in Cork and studying for our exams.  Q. What inspired you to pursue a career in accountancy?  I remember during the graduate intake period at university reading the various job brochures from companies and organisations. I was struck by the Chartered Accountant (CA) qualification being a portable tool you could use as a foundation to build a wide and varied career in professional services. It certainly hasn’t disappointed. I have been able to gain wide-ranging experience from external audit to transaction services over the course of 22 years working for Big Four firms.  Through secondments, I’ve had the opportunity to live and work in both New York and London.  I started in audit, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 2005 and becoming an External Audit Manager in 2006.  I joined the Transactions Team at EY in 2007 and worked until 2016 in various roles before returning to the firm in 2022 as a Partner in our M&A/Corporate Finance Team. I may be biased, but in the world of corporate finance and M&A, the CA qualification is regarded as a differentiator and a distinct advantage.  It is a badge of honour you can take with you into any boardroom environment. The skills I have acquired through the qualification have served me exceptionally well throughout my career.  Q. As your career progressed, what prompted you to move from audit into M&A?   There is one moment that stands out as an important pivot point for me. Back in 2007, I got to spend some time working with a partner preparing the content for an information memorandum relating to a potential transaction.  I was intrigued and excited by the prospect of supporting on the deal. It was this experience that made me consider moving into M&A. I really enjoy the variety the role offers day-to-day. I get to work with so many different people and businesses. It is fast-paced and I find helping business owners to achieve their goals hugely rewarding. My audit experience has been essential in helping me to understand the core value drivers in business and, over time, it enabled me to move towards the M&A side of the market. Q. What does your day-to-day role involve?  I spend most of my time working with business owners to devise strategies that will allow them to de-risk and obtain growth capital while executing a transaction that delivers value.  Achieving the best outcome is a fine balancing act. It’s important to take time to meet with owners, funders, legal intermediaries and wider market players to ensure your “finger is on the pulse” when it comes to potential opportunities for your clients. I have a lot of meetings with local and international investors so I can fully understand their investment criteria and match them with suitable Irish companies.  The rest of my time is focused on deal execution – preparing information memorandums, agreeing heads of terms and reviewing sale and purchase agreements in tandem with legal colleagues.  From a private equity perspective, business owners often have an opportunity to obtain growth capital and commence a ‘buy and build’ process with a defined M&A strategy.  Dealmakers are looking at synergies across the various functions of a larger organisation. Investors are focused on the objectives behind a transaction. Often, the deal is about unlocking the potential and value that exists in an organisation.  Over the course of my career, I’ve been involved in hundreds of exciting transactions on both the buy and sell side. Some of the recent stand-out deals include the sale of PFH Technology Group to Japanese firm Ricoh and Phoenix Equity’s investment in Nostra Technologies. I have also enjoyed working with Zeus Packaging on several acquisitions in recent years.  Q. What are the biggest trends in the M&A market currently?  There was a global slowdown in transaction activity in 2022 and the first half of 2023, primarily due to uncertain debt markets and macroeconomic factors.  The M&A landscape has since improved and the Irish market is well-placed to see an uplift in deal volumes this year, as Irish assets continue to attract interest from investors, both local and international.  Ireland is a very competitive country internationally with an innovative, technology-driven, service-focused and open trading economy.  Our regions have grown and developed into destinations of choice for global companies, as well as providing a platform for indigenous private companies to develop and scale.  Acquirers are seeking strategic assets and the fundamentals of the Irish economy remain strong, making Ireland an attractive location for investment.  Private equity investment in the mid-market, driven by the availability of ‘dry powder’, is also playing a much deeper role in the Irish market. As we move forward, private business optimism coupled with the existence of a more developed and balanced risk appetite, will define the level of activity for the year ahead.  Q. You are currently President of Cork Chamber. How did this role come about and what does it mean to you?  The passing of both my parents in a short period of time gave me more perspective and a sense that maybe I should work to make more of a difference in society and business in a way that would complement my professional role with EY.  I was appointed Chair of Cork Chamber’s Economic and Enterprise Committee for two years in 2013. Then, in 2018, I joined the Board as Honorary Treasurer and became Vice-President in 2020. I was elected President and Chair of the Board of Cork Chamber in May 2022 for a term of two years.  It was a proud moment and I have fully embraced it and enjoy the role.   Being President of Cork Chamber allows me to play a more active business and political leadership role in the region. The chamber has over 1,200 members employing some 120,000 people. Being President gives me a significant platform to represent the business community in the city and county.  Top tips for M&A transactions Ireland remains a highly attractive location for investment and, looking to the year ahead, there is significant appetite to deploy capital as business owners continue to seek growth capital.  The technology sector continues to dominate the M&A landscape in Ireland in terms of transactions, partnerships and strategic alliances.  Other sectors of interest include engineering, financial services, business support services, healthcare, life sciences (both pharma and medtech) and ESG.  The green transition to a lower carbon economy is also driving investment decisions, and companies with sustainability credentials will continue to be attractive. For Irish companies undertaking a merger or exit, being well-prepared is essential for maximising the value of the transaction. Here are my top five tips: Understand key value drivers; this is essential to both preparation and execution; Have a clear growth story with understandable drivers that underpin financial projections to match specific investor criteria and strategic objectives; Align key management in preparation for a transaction process, while also ensuring the team has the bandwidth to focus on the day-to-day running of the business; Ensure the business/economic cycle supports your plan exit (e.g. historic company performance versus forecast performance and macroeconomic environment); Ensure compliance across all areas of the business (e.g. regulatory, environmental and sustainability). Addressing these areas well ahead of undertaking a potential M&A process will help reduce the risk of value erosion during a transaction.  Appointing advisors can also ease the transaction process and enhance value by allowing owners and managers to continue to focus on successful day-to-day operations. And to advisors, I would also say: take the time to listen carefully. It’s important to be humble and confident. There is no place for arrogance. 

From art to accountancy and audit to recruitment, Mark Baker has forged a multi-faceted career that speaks to the diversity and mobility of the profession today In his career as a financial recruiter, Mark Baker estimates he has met “thousands” of accountants. “Not one is the same as the next,” Baker says. “This clichéd idea that we are boring is just not true, but thankfully I think we’re seeing that cliché less and less these days.” Baker puts this shifting perception of accountants down to the rise of professional platforms such as LinkedIn – which has given people greater insight into the reality of the profession and how diverse it is. “Qualifying as a Chartered Accountant gives you such a strong career foundation. It opens up avenues and gives you a lot of different options,” he says. “You can go anywhere you want with it really because, if you are a Chartered Accountant, people know straight off the bat that you have a high level of competence in multiple areas – you need that to get the qualification in the first place.” As joint Managing Partner of Darwin Hawkins, the recruitment firm he established in 2018 with co-founder and fellow FCA Niall O’Kelly (ex-PwC), Baker has a bird’s eye view of emerging trends in the profession and what might lie ahead for the accountant of the future.   Range of career options Darwin Hawkins provides recruitment services to employers and candidates in the finance sector and has as its Chair investor James Caan, CBE, the British-Pakistani recruitment entrepreneur and former judge on the BBC series Dragons’ Den. “Every day, we’re talking to Chartered Accountants about their career options and the sheer range of choices open to them. You can go into a multitude of diverse areas such as data analytics, corporate finance or sustainability,” Baker says. “I’ve always viewed training contracts as apprenticeships. A lot of people train in audit for three-plus years and move directly into roles as financial accountants or financial analysts. “They can often even move into corporate finance on very good salaries straight after training in audit, but those two roles are actually very different. I think that really highlights the quality of the qualification and the mobility it gives you in terms of your career options right from the get-go.” Baker himself qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte in Dublin, training in audit, and went on to work in the banking sector with Certus, the specialist loan servicing group, before cutting his teeth in recruitment with FK International and partnering with Niall O’Kelly to launch Darwin Hawkins. His path to qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and finding his entrepreneurial niche in recruitment has not been a straightforward one, however, and, as Baker sees it, his story serves as a strong example of the diversity in the profession and varied career paths qualifying as a Chartered Accountant can support. “I really think young people need to hear our stories as Chartered Accountants; about what we do every day, the opportunities we have and how we got to where we are. That’s the best way we can show them what this profession has to offer,” he says.   Path to accounting Baker grew up in the south Dublin suburbs of Shankill and Sandyford, attending Cabinteely Community School, and went on to study Arts at University College Dublin (UCD). “When I was at primary school, all I can remember is that I wanted to play for Celtic FC and, as I got a bit older and wiser, I decided maybe I could be an artist. I was good at art, good at sports. My parents were always very supportive, so I grew up genuinely believing I could be anything I wanted to be,” he says. “I did quite well at school, but unfortunately like many people I know, I can’t say I had great career guidance at secondary school and I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go in.” While studying at UCD, Baker discovered his entrepreneurial flair, selling portrait paintings for impressive price tags in local art galleries and then online. “As a 20-year-old at college, in my spare time I was selling my paintings through galleries for €2,000 and €3,000. It was a simple business model – I put the work in and got paid for it in direct proportion. I was able to create something from nothing, go to market, and be financially rewarded. That entrepreneurial mindset was always there, and it was now being validated,” he says. “After college, I made the decision to go full-time doing that for a year to see how it would go – selling art through my website and the Green Gallery in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre – famous faces, portraits, realism.” “I did reasonably well, but then the recession hit in 2008 and everything just fell off a cliff. Nobody wanted to spend money on paintings. My little bubble burst. I had to step back and ask myself, not just ‘What do I want to do?’ but also, ‘What’s a solid career?’ I didn’t want to be a starving artist.” To this day, Baker continues to paint in his own time and has been commissioned over the years to produce portraits of high-profile subjects, including Barack Obama, Stephen Spielberg and Dave Grohl, lead singer of the Foo Fighters. “I promised myself I would never give up on it and I haven’t. I still sell my paintings and hold exhibitions, but I knew when the recession hit that I also needed security. I liked the open-ended nature of accountancy. When you become an accountant, you can essentially go into any kind of business, and even start your own. That appealed to me,” he says.   Professional diploma in accounting Baker went on to complete the Professional Diploma in Accounting at DCU Business School, a conversion course designed for non-business graduates who want to work in accounting. After graduating, he joined Deloitte as a trainee and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2011. “I found Deloitte very supportive. They give you everything you need. The people are the best thing about it, particularly at your own level. You have a support group when you are doing your exams and training contract,” he says. “Without the support of those around me, and the opportunity to ask questions when I needed to, I think I would have struggled. I learned a lot. I learned what professionalism is. I learned what a high standard of performance is – the best in the business. For me, the Chartered Accountants Ireland professional training programme is the peak, the pinnacle. I learned a million little things through my training contract that still stand to me today.” Now, as a recruiter and co-founder of his own firm, Baker is intent on using his experience in life and work to provide candidates and employers with a personal, tailored recruitment experience. “With Darwin Hawkins, Niall and I backed ourselves and each other. We took a risk starting a recruitment business, but it’s also delivered the biggest reward. I believe that people need to take more risks,” he says. “We’re different from many of the other recruiters I’ve come across in our field. We’re a team of qualified accountants. Having met thousands of accountants, I know more now about every facet of accounting and every possible career path, than I ever would doing the one role. “Accountants are very nuanced due to the wide-ranging career paths open to them. Every accountant we meet has a different story, different skillsets, and will have different opportunities. We try to help people realise and seize these opportunities”.   Future of the profession As for the future of the profession? The basics will always matter, Baker says. “Employers will always want to know that candidates have the basics of accounting mastered. Interpersonal skills will always be a major selling point, but I think now with the emergence of different technologies, adaptability is also very important,” he says. “Employers want to know that you will be willing and able to get stuck into tasks and projects that are outside the day-to-day – a systems implementation project, for example, or something that’s heavy on data analytics”. “Knowledge and experience in big data and Power BI data visualisation tools are increasingly important along with a good understanding of systems implementation and process improvement”. “Because technology is evolving so much, these systems have to be implemented and finance teams are heavily involved because they are the ones who are going to be using them. When you get involved, you become an integral part of the business”. “Artificial intelligence is another obvious one. There are multiple AI tools already being used in finance, but you still need the people with the ideas and knowledge to train these systems with the correct prompts, and to ensure that ethical standards are being maintained. “I believe that there will always be a need for accounting talent, no matter what technology brings and how it might change the way we work.”

The achievements of the vibrant network of over 700 Chartered Accountants in the US continue to represent the best of the profession and provide a crucial conduit for inbound investment to our shores US members represent best of the profession  For decades, Ireland’s Chartered Accountants have beaten a well-worn path across the Atlantic, writes Sinead Donovan, President of Chartered Accountants Ireland. Facilitated by a Mutual Recognition Agreement with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), our members have had the opportunity to build their careers in roles across industry and practice. Many make the move in the early years of their career, looking to explore the world and gain post-qualification experience in a new market. As you will see in this special report, many remain there through their careers, becoming embedded in the local economy, their achievements in senior positions representing the best of the Chartered qualification. These more established representatives of our profession become highly effective advocates across the United States, and indeed for the island of Ireland, as they become influential ambassadors for inbound investment to our shores. This flow of investment is well-established and mutually beneficial for our economies, and I am proud of the critical role our members play in driving and servicing this. As a membership organisation, one of the most critical things we can do is support members in this work. In what I like to call the “family” of accountants, I have come to realise that no matter how far from home members are located, there is that strong desire for community and a sense of belonging with their fellow members overseas and with the Institute at home. On the ground in the US, there is also a strong network of overseas chapters, run so effectively by local volunteer members, many of whom I had the pleasure of meeting last year when I visited. The other crucial way we support members is through the power of our professional network. Over the years, we have built strong and enduring relationships with AICPA, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and Chartered Accountants Worldwide, among many others. This collective voice is invaluable in continuing to help our profession to grow and further develop meaningful economic and societal impact.  Colm Mackin, Act+Acre As co-founder and Chief Executive of Act+Acre, the New York headquartered haircare business he runs with his wife and business partner Helen Reavey, Colm Mackin has just launched the brand in 235 US outlets of Sephora, the cosmetics retail giant. It is a major milestone for Mackin, a Chartered Accountant from Co. Down, and Reavey, a top hairstylist from Armagh, who launched the brand together in 2019. They partnered with scientists at Stanford University to develop a range of patented cold-processed haircare products designed to resolve scalp-related issues ranging from product build-up to thinning hair. Since then, Mackin and Reavey have employed a successful e-commerce strategy that has seen Act+Acre grow from strength to strength, netting the venture US$12 million in private investment. “That first spark of an idea came from Helen’s experience working at Paris Fashion Week with all these models who were going from show to show,” Mackin explains.  “They had nothing to remove scalp build-up and their hair wasn’t performing. We saw this gap in the market for a range of products that could address these issues and promote scalp health as the basis for healthy hair.” At the time, Mackin had transferred from PwC in Dublin to work on the international tax team at the firm’s New York office. His decision to leave a secure role in practice for the unfamiliar world of entrepreneurship was bolstered by his pure belief in the Act+Acre concept. “What I had been doing in practice gave me a really good grounding for what we’ve gone on to achieve with Act+Acre, but there are different chapters to the story,” he says. “We spent six months researching our products and the cold-processed process behind them. Then, you must get the product/market fit right, build your team and raise the money you need. “I think that’s where I’ve really seen the benefits of my qualification coming through. America is a place where you have access to investors you wouldn’t necessarily find in smaller markets and being Irish helps because we’re naturally good storytellers and we are naturally passionate.  “That helps to get the conversation started, but being a Chartered Accountant also means I have a very good understanding of profit and loss on a balance sheet. I can speak with confidence to investors; it’s just innate. I can answer their questions. You’re speaking to them on their level and that helps hugely when you’re out there raising money to build your own business.” US market appeal Mackin is one of over 700 members of Chartered Accountants Ireland currently living and working in the US.  More than one-in-three are in the 24-44 age bracket, demonstrating the market’s ongoing appeal to, and demand for, talented Chartered Accountants from Ireland building their careers.  While concentrated in cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and LA, their footprint can be found right across the country, from Washington State to Florida and from Texas to Michigan.  Eighty-two percent of Institute members in the US work in business. The second largest cohort (10%) work in practice.   Una Troy, SS&C Technologies One of the 82 percent of Institute members in the US working in business is Una Troy. Troy is a Managing Director with SS&C Technologies, a provider of services and software to the financial services and healthcare industries with some 20,000 clients and offices around the world. Based in New Jersey, Troy qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Dublin and had already worked in high-level positions in the funds industry in the UK and Australia by the time she found herself en route to the US in 2005. “I was working with BISYS Fund Services in Dublin in 2005 when the company started hiring people to support its growing hedge fund business in the US and I decided to make the move across to New Jersey,” she says. Almost immediately, Troy found her qualification as a Chartered Accountant beneficial to her career progression in the States. “At the time, BISYS had acquired the hedge fund administration arm of an accountancy practice and I was able to help that business integrate into BISYS,” she says. “My accountancy background gave the local leadership team confidence in me and the group I was leading and, when BISYS was sold to Citi, I became Global Head of Operations for Citi’s hedge fund business.” Troy was subsequently appointed Managing Director, SS&C GlobeOp, following SS&C Technologies’ acquisition of Citi’s Alternative Investor Services Business. “I have found the US very welcoming as a place to live and work. There are a lot of commonalities culturally between Ireland and the US; both share a very strong work ethic. There are great career opportunities here and your efforts are rewarded.” Troy’s advice to Chartered Accountants who have relocated to the US more recently is to make full use of the professional network facilitated on-the-ground by Chartered Accountants Ireland. “You’ll start to form a network of colleagues within your work role, but it’s also important to broaden your contacts outside that,” she says. “Attend events hosted by Chartered Accountants Ireland and other organisations relevant to your work. Once you start to attend these events, you automatically start to broaden your network.” The Chartered Accountancy qualification is relatively well-recognised in the US and associated with high professional standards, Troy says, but certain roles may require applicants to hold a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation.  “For many Irish Chartered Accountants, the qualification itself will suffice but where a CPA designation is required, an accelerated path has been facilitated by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the National Association of the State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) through a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) with Chartered Accountants Ireland,” she says. About the MRA Chartered Accountants Ireland first signed its MRA with the AICPA and NASBA in 2004 and the agreement has since been renewed several times.  “Irish Chartered Accountants can access the US designation and gain practice rights in the US,” explains Ian Browne, Director of Education, Chartered Accountants Ireland. “This is of particular relevance to those who wish to work in practice in the US and is increasingly required by US firms.” To successfully complete the process, Chartered Accountants are required to pass the International Qualification Exam (IQEX) operated by NASBA. This can be done in Ireland before moving to the US. “Additionally, as the US CPA qualification includes audit rights, you should ideally have obtained the Irish Audit Qualification before you leave should you plan to work in audit,” Browne says. Ken L. Bishop, President and CEO of NASBA, says the MRA gives Irish Chartered Accountants a relatively easy route to securing the necessary certification to work in the US. “Irish Chartered Accountants are typically highly valued by the US profession and many have taken advantage of the MRA,” Bishop says. “I believe that the MRA and the flexibility and mobility of practice privileges that can be accomplished is hugely important. We live in an increasingly global economy, and the business and economic nexus between the US and Ireland continues to increase.” Alan T. Ennis, former Revlon CEO For Alan T. Ennis, who has lived and worked in the US since 1999, his qualification as a Chartered Accountant provided the crucial foundation on which he has been able to build a high-flying career in business. Ennis studied commerce at University College Dublin and qualified in 1991 with Arthur Andersen, where he continued to work as a manager for a few years before moving to the UK to join Ingersoll Rand in Manchester. It wasn’t until he negotiated a transfer to the US multinational’s New Jersey office in 1999, however, that his career really began to take off. “I moved through various different financial roles from internal audit to financial planning and investor relations there,” he says. In 2004, as he was considering a potential move to North Dakota to take up a position as CFO of Ingersoll Rand’s Bobcat division, Ennis was headhunted for a very different role. “I was offered the position of head of internal audit at Revlon. I was in my early thirties and my choice was between Bobcat in Fargo, North Dakota, and this other role with a very different and much smaller company that would put me in New York.  “Revlon had a lot of debt at the time. It was a high-risk move, but I thought, ‘you know what, I’m going to go for it’.” It was a risk that would pay off for Ennis who quickly climbed the ladder at Revlon. “Being a Chartered Accountant put me in a very good place to understand the financial operations of any corporation and that really stood me in good stead at Revlon,” he says.  “I could understand financial statements, I understood the importance of profitability and cash and how investments work.  “What happened next was really a combination of readiness and serendipity. Within two-and-half years, I had gone from Head of Internal Audit to Corporate Controller to President of International and then Chief Financial Officer.” As CFO, Ennis again found his training as a Chartered Accountant invaluable. “The Board of Directors could see that I knew how the business worked; how it operated.” After two-and-a-half years as Revlon’s CFO, Ennis was appointed to the top role of Chief Executive of Revlon for five years. “I had a great run and a superb team of people behind me and when I left that role in 2014, I got a great package and I wasn’t under pressure anymore really to prove myself. I had choices,” he says. In the years since, Ennis has “dabbled in private equity and joined a couple of boards, both profit and not-for-profit.”  “In everything I’ve done here in the US, my qualification continues to be the most valuable jewel in my chest of knowledge,” he says. “My advice to Chartered Accountants moving from Ireland to the States now is to make sure you start to connect with other Chartered Accountants over here straight away – and there are lots of us in New York, Boston, San Francisco and other places. That’s a valuable network. “The other piece of advice I would have is that it’s okay to put yourself out there – in fact, it’s a good idea. Americans tend to be confident in how they present themselves professionally. They are proud of what they have done and they’re confident in their success and in abilities.  “They’re not afraid to talk about it. Irish people, myself included at times, tend to downplay our achievements and abilities. In the US, people won’t necessarily understand that so it’s not a bad idea to learn to advocate for yourself, your skills and talents.” Significant contribution to New York business community Irish Chartered Accountants make a significant contribution to the New York business community, writes Helena Nolan, Consul General of Ireland in New York. Its active members are a testament to the wide reach of Irish and Irish American accounting professionals in the broader New York business and finance sectors. It was a pleasure to host Chartered Accountants Ireland again for another networking event at the Consulate in New York during St. Patrick’s week in 2023 and an honour to have Irish Minister for Education, Norma Foley TD, present to address the gathering of members and partner organisations. Networking events like these are important for showcasing members’ contribution, for raising awareness of the increasing opportunities available now for businesses in Ireland and to help underpin the vibrant professional relationships between professional organisations and individuals in the United States and Ireland. The Consulate team is always pleased to support and reinforce these strategic linkages between our two countries and our two economies, where we see an increasingly mutual relationship, in terms of trade and investment, and great potential for the future. Chartered Accountants play important role in winning FDI for Ireland    Ireland’s investment relationship with the US is strong and enduring with about half of all IDA Ireland clients headquartered in the US, writes Brian Conroy, Executive Vice President and Director, North America, IDA Ireland. These US companies employ more than 180,000 people in Ireland across a range of sectors such as technology, life sciences, financial services and engineering. US investments in Ireland are by no means gained effortlessly. With over 30,000 members, Chartered Accountants Ireland plays a very important role in the winning of FDI for Ireland. The Institute’s members work in senior positions in practice and industry both in Ireland and in the US and provide the financial leadership and talent crucial to Ireland’s success. A key reason our country is an attractive place for US companies to do business is because people here in government, industry and academia work hard to make it that way. The activities of US multinational companies supported by IDA Ireland make a crucial contribution to our FDI success. US members: key decision-makers driving NI inward investment Alongside our wider diaspora network, professional membership bodies like Chartered Accountants Ireland play a significant role in bringing people together, writes Andrea Haughian, Executive Vice President and Head of Americas with Invest Northern Ireland.  Organisations like Chartered Accountants Ireland afford agencies such as Invest Northern Ireland the opportunity to engage with members across the US, many of whom are, or can facilitate access to, key decision-makers responsible for investment decisions. We deeply value the relationships facilitated by Chartered Accountants Ireland. For more than 20 years, Invest Northern Ireland has supported US companies to successfully establish centres of excellence in Northern Ireland.  Northern Ireland’s global reputation as a trusted business partner with a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, talented workforce and deep expertise in research and innovation, has long been a magnet for significant foreign direct investment from the US. Companies such as Seagate, Citi, Aflac, and Microsoft have joined more than 230 US-owned businesses operating across the region and employing over 30,000 people in sectors as diverse as technology, advanced manufacturing and engineering, life and health sciences and financial and professional services.  Demonstrating the importance of the relationship between the US and Northern Ireland, US President Joe Biden has appointed Joe Kennedy III as the US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs with a focus on advancing economic development and investment opportunities. 

As we prepare to usher in the New Year, three Chartered Accountants tell us about the biggest changes and challenges they have faced in their professional lives over the past 12 months Michelle Hawkins  Head of Business Advisory FPM 2023 has certainly been an interesting year!  As Head of Business Advisory at FPM, I support both public sector and private clients as they navigate these difficult times. A key challenge in 2023 has undoubtedly been the unprecedented rise in interest rates, resulting in difficulties accessing and servicing finance.  Clients increasingly require support in this area. To address this, our organisation established a dedicated Funding Solutions Division designed to help clients renegotiate their banking and loan commitments. The talent shortage and skills gap that our clients have experienced in the past year has been among the biggest in history.  It’s hard to believe that, in the current economic climate, lack of available talent is the number one challenge keeping businesses from growing and innovating. In response, we launched a Virtual Finance Function to support businesses that need to strengthen or fully outsource their finance department.  Another challenge this year has been the need to help businesses prepare for the impact of the Windsor Framework, which came into force in October. We are fortunate to have customs experts within the AAB Group with which we recently merged, whose knowledge and skills have greatly supported clients adapting to the new regime. John Morgan  CFO Dale Farm Coop I will most certainly view 2023 as a pivotal year in my career.  After spending 20 enjoyable years in a plc environment with BT, I took a leap into the unknown, joining Dale Farm Coop as Chief Financial Officer – switching not just to a different business model but also a very different sector.  Cash management has been crucial in both roles. During my time working with a plc, good cash management was about ensuring that we delivered our quarterly cash commitments to the city.  At Dale Farm, it’s about ensuring that our debt levels are controlled while paying a milk price that’s as competitive as possible. On reflection, the main challenge so far in this role has been managing the balance between profit and milk price. As a coop, our primary objective is to pay our members the most competitive milk price we can.  To achieve this objective, we need to generate a certain profit level to fund working capex/capex requirements and ensure we pay a competitive milk price over the long term. Managing this balance is critical to the role of CFO at Dale Farm.  Communicating directly with our board, leadership team and members to explain why we need to make a certain level of profit has been a key focus for me in 2023.  My second biggest priority since joining Dale Farm has been the management of interest costs and working capital levels.  Due to our investment strategy, debt levels have increased and, as interest rates have doubled over the last 12 months, this has required greater attention on working capital management. Educating the business on the parameters and importance of working capital has been a priority for me.  I would advise anyone considering a move between industries and business models to embrace the opportunity. I’ve found the change invigorating and I’m pleasantly surprised at how the core skillset of a Chartered Accountant can be applied so well in such different environments. Brian McNamara  Managing Director SwiftFile Customs When the post-Brexit trading environment kicked in almost three years ago, much of the initial focus was on keeping goods moving whereas ensuring compliance was not necessarily given the same level of attention by importers unfamiliar with customs obligations.  After a relatively relaxed initial approach from the Revenue Commissioners, 2023 has seen a significant increase in the number of companies selected for customs audits. With this, we have certainly seen a heightened awareness of the importance of managing customs risk. With Revenue audits now becoming the norm for importers and the potential fines and penalties that go with them, this is a trend I expect to see continue. October 2023 also saw the introduction of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the EU carbon tax on imports.  While not a core customs issue, the CBAM reporting requirements for importers of iron, steel and cement (initially) are particularly onerous.  Staffing continues to be a challenge in our industry. The economy has slowed in 2023, and there have been some high-profile job losses in the technology industry. As with other sectors, however, there are industry-specific reasons for staffing challenges in customs clearance.  Thirty years of single market membership has meant a shortage of customs professionals. Now that the UK has left the EU, it will take time to build the knowledge base on customs in Ireland. In the meantime, we address this issue by providing comprehensive in-house training.  Thankfully, everything stops moving over the Christmas period. This will allow us all to take a well-earned break and come back ready to meet challenges as they present themselves in 2024.

Jonathan Wilson talks us through his career from his training in Belfast in the nineties through to his current role as Managing Director, Chief Internal Auditor with Barclays Europe In the 30 years since he began his training contract in 1993 with BDO Stoy Hayward in Belfast, Jonathan Wilson has carved out an accomplished career in internal audit in banks ranging from National Australia Bank and Danske to NatWest and now Barclays. Here, he tells Accountancy Ireland why he chose to specialise in audit and the decisions, opportunities and lessons that have helped him progress his career to date. Do you remember when and why you decided to train as a Chartered Accountant? When I was ten or 11, it seemed like all the kids around me wanted to be pilots or astronauts. I wanted to be an accountant. My uncle was an accountant, and I had a genuine interest in business – in particular, business performance – from a young age.  That’s why, when I finished at Methodist College in Belfast, I chose to study economics at Queen’s and, from there, to join BDO Stoy Hayward in 1993 to train as a Chartered Accountant. I got great training with really broad experience and, at an early stage, decided I wanted a career in industry rather than practice.  I started to focus on internal audit and risk management and joined Northern Bank in Belfast as a Senior Auditor in 1999.  Because National Australia Bank owned Northern Bank at that time, I got the opportunity to move to Melbourne in 2002 as a Senior Audit Manager working across areas ranging from corporate banking to retail services, finance and risk. That role also allowed me to work in New Zealand and in Asia and, when Northern Bank was taken over by Danske Bank in Ireland, I was asked to come back to help manage the transition as its Head of Internal Audit in the North and south. After five years, I was given responsibility for Danske Banks’ Internal Audit in new markets including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Poland and the Baltics. I then had a brief period as Group Chief Auditor with the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation followed by 18 months as Head of Audit with AIB. I joined NatWest as Chief Auditor in 2014 and started in my current role with Barclays in January 2023.  Are you glad you decided to qualify as a Chartered Accountant? Has the qualification helped or hindered your career? Being a Chartered Accountant can open up so many professional opportunities. You need a lot of discipline, patience and perseverance to earn the qualification in the first place and this experience has helped me enormously in my career since. Chartered Accountants can work in a really broad range of environments – from all kinds of businesses to practice or the public sector – you name it. This scope has given me a strong grounding in understanding how business works, not just from a financial point of view, but also in a broader sense. Tell us about your current role as Chief Internal Auditor with Barclays Europe. When I joined Barclays, it had been in Ireland for more than 30 years, but it was facing a new set of very exciting opportunities in the wake of the Brexit vote.  I now lead a very experienced team of audit professionals based in Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt. The organisation is incredibly diverse, not just geographically but also in terms of the people I work with every day. I am ultimately responsible for the quality of the assurance work our team provides and I am lucky to have a team of strong directors working with me. As well as our assurance work, we are expected to add real value to the business in terms of risk management and systems of internal control. What are the biggest trends and developments you have seen in your profession and the wider market since starting out? Traditionally, auditing was very manual with lots of paper records stored in Lever Arch files and big, heavy briefcases. Audit software was only just beginning to emerge at the start of my career and it’s amazing to reflect now on how much this whole area has since evolved. Today, we are dealing with metadata and approaching the operating audit with a much greater emphasis on digital tools. Auditors nowadays need to be digitally enabled and we are also beginning to look at how we can use artificial intelligence in our work in the future. When I did my MBA with Manchester Business School, my specialist topic focused on the various financial crises we have experienced going right back to the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In the years since, the time lag between financial crises has narrowed dramatically. We used to get one every 50 years, but now we are finding ourselves in a crisis every five or ten years. I have experienced a number of these crises working in internal audit, and my international experience has given me a good perspective on how best to deal with them. Is there anything in particular you have learned in your career that has stood you in good stead? When I was with National Australian Group, Mark Martinelli was the Chief Auditor. He was a big influence on me. He taught me to ask the simple question: “If it doesn’t make sense, why doesn’t it make sense?”  We can get carried away, agonising over complex and difficult tasks and challenges. Sometimes, the best approach is to return to your key audit principles and ask this one simple question – and keep hold of it until you get the answer. Audit standards have been developed and refined over the years, but the core principles are the same today as they were when I was starting my career. Our role is about providing assurance and gathering sufficient audit evidence; it’s about our control objectives. Asking the simple questions is vital. What career advice would you offer your younger self if you had the opportunity? Don’t narrow your horizons. Keep your aspirations broad and try to work across as many different companies and countries as you can.  Also, do things you like to do and enjoy what you are doing. My son once considered a career in medicine, but he’s now an accountant – somewhat to my surprise!  When he told me he had taken a job with a film company making documentaries for Netflix, Disney and Amazon, I had some concerns given the insecure nature of the industry. Then I thought, “Actually, that sounds really exciting”. In the end, I told him to go for it – he would have anyway! I suppose my advice is that you shouldn’t make choices in your career to please anyone else. Do the things you want to do for yourself and don’t be afraid of failure. Finally, what are your career plans from here on in? I love the job I have right now. I’ve only been with Barclays for a short time and I have the ‘fuel in the tank’ to expand and develop in this role. It is a big challenge, but it’s very enjoyable. Another aspect of my career as a Chartered Accountant I find really rewarding is the scope it has given me to apply my skills volunteering as a trustee with various charities and sporting organisations.  I have done a lot of volunteering outside my ‘day job’ and my background in Chartered Accountancy has been incredibly valuable here. When eventually I am no longer working full-time, I hope to be able to continue in non-executive board positions and to continue to use my skills and experience where it may be required.

Mike Hanrahan, FCA and Chair of Sustain.Life, tells Accountancy Ireland why carbon accounting capability is becoming a must-have for suppliers to big corporations  Wexford-born Chartered Accountant Mike Hanrahan is Chair and co-founder of Sustain.Life, the innovative tech start-up behind a software-as-a-service platform that helps companies decarbonise their operations. Sustain.Life combines environmental, sustainable and governance (ESG) and carbon accounting tools so companies of all sizes can better manage and mitigate carbon emissions while also cutting costs. Based in New Jersey in the US, Hanrahan launched Sustain.Life in 2021 with co-founders Annalee Bloomfield and Patrick Campagnano, and is now gearing up to scale the company globally. Here, he talks to Accountancy Ireland about the professional path that has taken him from Ireland to London and the US, and from a career in accounting to banking and finance, e-commerce and, now, sustainable entrepreneurship. Tell us about Sustain.Life. How did the company come about?  Before I established Sustain.Life, I co-founded the e-commerce company Jet.com in the US with two guys, Marc Lore and Nate Faust.  By that stage, I had moved to the US, but before that I worked in London having trained as a Chartered Accountant with PwC in Ireland.  I started working in The City in the mid-nineties when I was in my early twenties and moved from risk management into technology, building risk and trading systems for banks. Marc Lore was my boss while I was working at Credit Suisse. He became a great mentor and, when he moved to the US to set up his first e-commerce start-up, I agreed to move over as well to work with him. We subsequently set up Jet.com together. I was the company’s Chief Technology Officer and when we sold Jet.com to Walmart in 2013, I became Chief Executive of Walmart’s Intelligent Retail Lab. That’s where I met Annalee Bloomfield and Patrick Campagnano. Annalee was Head of Product and Customer Experience and Patrick was Head of Engineering. We had all this expertise in building scalable, accessible technologies that could meet market needs and we could see the challenges Walmart’s suppliers were facing trying to adhere to its ESG standards and requirements.  We wanted to make sustainability more accessible – to democratise it – for smaller companies in the supply chain. Climate change is humanity’s greatest threat and, together, SMEs account for a significant amount of the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. We need the tools to enable more organisations to take meaningful climate action – and we need them quickly. That’s what Sustain.Life is all about. How does Sustain.Life work? How does the platform make it easier for SMEs to be more sustainable?  Big corporations like Walmart tend to have the resources they need to invest in sustainability programmes whereas SMEs don’t.  It’s much more difficult to introduce carbon accounting and climate action programmes in a small company where you have less money and fewer people. That was our starting point for Sustain.Life and the sizable market need we are addressing with the platform. Sustain.Life gives SMEs who don’t have in-house expertise the tools they need to start measuring the environmental impact of their internal operations and supply chains.  It helps them understand how to manage and reduce their emissions by introducing operational changes in areas like energy, water and waste. The platform is also designed to help them comply with reporting frameworks, even as they are evolving in different jurisdictions, and allows them to report their sustainability progress to customers, investors and employees using verifiable data.  Tell us about your interest in sustainable business, and in using technology to help combat climate change.  I have been passionate about sustainability for a long time, really since I first moved to the US in 2010. Prior to that, I hadn’t really understood some of the psychology around climate change and the power of the fossil fuel industry on people’s thinking here in the US. It was so different to what I had experienced in Europe. I found that quite a lot of people here didn’t take climate change seriously and didn’t see it as a critical threat. That was very worrying. Climate change is barrelling at us really quickly and we need to act now.  Back then, I think there was still wider optimism that climate change was a problem we could solve relatively easily. It’s not. Energy is at the heart of our entire global economy and fossil fuels power a large percentage of our energy. The threat is enormous and it is complex. We need to find solutions to electrify the global economy and that is going to take many years.  We have to invest money now and start to move very quickly if we are going to get ourselves into a position where we can stop the rot and figure out how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon capture and other means. What is the state-of-play now in the US regarding efforts to curb climate change and where does Sustain.Life fit in?  When we were starting Sustain.Life, we saw two big potential drivers in the US for a carbon accounting platform: sustainability in the supply chain and regulation, either at state or federal level. Both predictions are starting to materialise. In October, a new law was approved in California requiring big corporations with annual revenues of over $1 billion to report greenhouse gas emissions. We have also recently started to see some of the biggest Fortune 500 companies introduce new policies requiring companies in their supply chain to be able to report on, and set goals for, their own carbon emissions. Amazon, Microsoft and Costco have all now introduced these policies. We already had experience of this at Walmart, which introduced Project Gigaton back in 2017 with the aim of reducing or avoiding one billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gasses from its global value chain by 2030. When we were out raising money for Sustain.Life, we were telling the venture capitalists that smaller companies supplying the Big Fortune 500 corporations like Walmart, Amazon and Costco would be out of business within a few years if they were unable to report on their carbon emissions.  It’s wonderful to see that sea change starting to happen in reality. You launched Sustain.Life in November 2021. Tell us about the development of the business so far. The version of the platform that went live in late 2021 was our MVP. Our revenue function kicked in early in the second quarter of 2022 and that’s really when we were ready to start selling into enterprises. For most of 2022, if you were to ask me what was keeping me up at night – it was wondering if we had timed the company right. We knew companies would need this technology, but you still have those questions: Are we too early? Is this demand going to materialise as we had anticipated? Now, I feel really good about both how our product and our market is developing. We’re able to go toe-to-toe with our competitors and that’s really important because our market is extremely competitive. There are new entrants nearly every week and we’re up against big enterprise players offering solutions in this space like Microsoft and Salesforce. We come up against these guys all the time and we seem to be able to beat them out. The market opportunity is massive and we’re ready to scale. We already have US customers in sectors like food and beverage, electric vehicles and fintech. We also work a lot in the US with accounting firms. We have some great accounting partners. What is the plan now for Sustain.Life? What is your strategy for the company over the next 12 months?  Our biggest focus right now is on internationalisation and tailoring the platform for the needs of different markets. It’s a complex process because you need to be able to support different currencies and units of measurement. Calculating carbon emissions requires a lot of different data sets – but we’re ready.  Our product is mature, as is our team, so our main focus now is on sales and building strong partner channels in different markets. Our first test market will be Australia, where we already have salespeople. Once our model is bedded down there, the plan is to copy it very quickly in other markets. In Europe, a big focus for us will be the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and Ireland – in particular, Ireland’s accounting sector – is very much in our sights. *Interview by Elaine O’Regan