“If you’re successful with us, you tend to be successful with others”

Special guest speaker and Tesco Group CEO Ken Murphy, FCA, shared his career insights and outlook for the future of business and the Irish economy at this year’s Annual Dinner

As Tesco Group Chief Executive, Ken Murphy is at the helm of the UK’s largest grocery retailer with an annual turnover of £61.5 billion and over 4,500 stores in the UK and other markets employing some 330,000 people.

Speaking on stage at the Chartered Accountants Ireland Annual Dinner in Dublin on Friday, 24 January, in conversation with MC Sarah McInerney, Murphy discussed his career, expectations for the Irish economy and shifting trends in the world of retail and business.

“The most obvious change I’ve seen since taking on this role is the impact technology has on every decision you make today,” Murphy said.

“When I joined Tesco, we had about 2,000 people in technology. Today, we have 5,000 and I wouldn’t be surprised if we have 10,000 by the end of the decade. 

“It’s just such a critical part of any business today. Almost anything you want to do now has a technology dependency.

“The opportunities are phenomenal. AI will absolutely turn everything we know on its head over the next five to ten years. Energy is the only real limiting step I can see at the moment.”

Originally from Cork, Murphy studied commerce at UCC and trained as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), beginning his career with Procter & Gamble.

By the time he had been appointed Finance Director with Alliance Unichem just a few short years after qualifying, it was clear to Murphy that his professional future lay in the world of business and retail.

“I am bad at maths and even worse at physics, but I’m good on numbers. I hated auditing but numbers came easy. At the end of my training, my Audit Partner said to me, ‘Ken, you really enjoy business; auditing, not so much’, which was a gentle nudge to do something else.” 

It was when he joined Procter & Gamble that, Murphy says, his career really “got into gear” and remaining open to opportunities has been the cornerstone of his success in the years since. 

His advice to young accountants starting out today is to “open more doors than you close—and take risks”.

“It doesn’t always work out,” he said, “but you definitely learn more from the failures than the successes and you have a lot of fun along the way, as long as you can take the knocks.”

Murphy was appointed Managing Director of Health and Beauty, International and Brands, at Boots in 2013.

He subsequently became Joint Chief Operating Officer at Boots UK & Ireland before rising to Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer and President Global Brands at Walgreens Boots Alliance. 

He was appointed to the Board of Tesco PLC as Group Chief Executive in October 2020. 

Although the transition from health and beauty to food retail proved a steep learning curve, Murphy describes his current role as “the best job I’ve ever had”.

“There is a much higher level of intensity in food retailing,” he said. “When you’re a high-street brand like Tesco, the public scrutiny is extraordinary. Nothing prepares you for that.

“It is extraordinarily intense, and, at the same time, we are thinking very long term in some of our strategies. I love the business. I love what we do. I love the people I work with.

“We have a lot of fun in an intensively competitive environment. We never have a day where we’re bored or thinking, ‘what will we do today?’”

Tesco has a growing presence on the island of Ireland, where it operates 181 stores in the south and 50 in the North. 

Last October, Tesco committed close to €200 million to the renewal and expansion of existing multi-year partnerships with Irish suppliers in the south. 

The retailer is, Murphy said, the world’s leading purchaser of Irish food and drink, buying €1.6 billion of Irish food and drink annually—more than the value of Irish food and drink exported to any country in the European Union.

“We have over 500 suppliers in Ireland and three quarters would be classified as SMEs employing 250 people or less,” Murphy said.

“One of the things that really struck me when I started this job and went out visiting our suppliers, were the stories they would tell me about how they were basically working out of a shed 35 years ago, then they got a contract with Tesco and now they have a massive organisation.

“That’s true of a number of our biggest Irish suppliers who have been extraordinarily successful in partnership with Tesco. 

“We love working with our suppliers and helping their brands grow. We are fair and transparent, but we are quite tough.

“If you’re successful with us, you tend to be successful with other people.
“We like to think we reward real entrepreneurial spirit and innovation–particularly in Ireland where food is enormously important and something we’re famous for globally.”

The future fortunes of the Irish economy will not be without challenge, however.

“If I look at what Ireland has done in terms of its brand relative to other countries, I’d say we do a pretty good job. We could always do better but, with the work of some of our semi-state bodies, whether it be Enterprise Ireland or Bórd Bia, we punch above our weight,” Murphy said.

“The challenge now is, ‘how do we really take that for a spin over the next five to 10 years in a global way?’ and I would be nervous of our dependency on US foreign direct investment.”

With US President Donald Trump’s ‘America first’ trade policy starting to gather steam, Murphy cautioned against a cavalier approach to transatlantic relations.

“I think Ireland punches above its weight in terms of our influence in the EU and in terms of the US, but we shouldn’t overplay our hand with the US. 

“I am very encouraged by the fact that there is hugely deep investment in Ireland over a very long period of time, but I feel we shouldn’t assume our special relationship with the US will endure forever. 

“There are competing interests, and we should be mindful of that but there is a lot of capability and competence in Ireland, so I feel like we have an opportunity.

“Ireland has the most stable political environment in Europe. We still have one of the best educational standards in Europe. We have a lot of other challenges, but I believe it’s all to play for.”