Andreea Wade is famous on the start-up scene and she is also intimately acquainted with the boardroom tables of venture capital firms. That's because she's CEO of Opening, a fast-growing start-up that's using artificial intelligence in the recruitment industry. The serial entrepreneur tells Margaret E Ward about what it's like to get funding as a female founder, from being ignored in meetings as a CEO to proving she has a right to "knock on the door" in the first place. This tenacious entrepreneur from Transylvania gives a no-holds-barred insight into the start-up/fundraising world where gender so often gets in the way, and reveals the ways she has overcome the biases and barriers that stand in the way of success. A must-listen for any entrepreneur.
Podcast Length: 28:14
She'd just become partner at Accenture, and Vivienne Jupp assumed she'd be joined by lots more women in the partnership ranks. She wasn't. The veteran board member and businesswoman began to notice two things: people talked differently about women than they did about men and men talked about going home to "babysit" their children. Vivienne decided to look under the hood and change things, practically, from the inside out. After all, this is a woman who travelled to Mexico City at the age of 15, to swim for Ireland in the Olympics. She's just stepped down as chair of the board of CIE, but she remains on as chair of CIE Tours. With decades of high-level business experience she shares the secrets to her success with Margaret E Ward, which include getting the blood circulating in the body and working out your own definition of work-life balance.
Podcast Length: 25:41
Trish Long is the General Manager and Vice President of Disney in Ireland. She's also worked with Oprah. How did she do it? She shares her remarkable and unplanned path with Margaret E Ward, one that began with her bargaining with her father to stay in school at age of 14. If you've ever beaten yourself for lacking focus or commitment in your career, Trish's story is for you. From nightclub worker to pirate radio presenter, and from secondhand bookshop employee to director of a rape crisis centre - Trish's road less travelled shows that it really is OK to not have it all figured out before you take that first, second or even third step. She reveals her tools of success, which include "owning fear" and being her "strong feminist" self at work.
Podcast Length: 32:15
Newly married, a 10-day-old baby and newly redundant, 2008 was an interesting year for Sara Mitchell and Gavin McCarthy. But 2009 was an even more interesting year, when the pair, a former property developer and marketing professional with no food business experience whatsoever, decided to buy a food truck and set up Ireland's first chicken rotisserie business - Poulet Bonne Femme. First there were the markets and the freezing-cold conditions of 2010, where the couple survived two months of no income right before Christmas. Then there was the disastrous music festival that nearly killed their business entirely, which included losing the weekend's meagre takings in a puddle of mud. And finally there was the stroke of genius that took Poulet Bonne Femme indoors and transformed it into a 40-job enterprise. If you're wondering how to turn any crisis into a bountiful opportunity, Sara and and Gavin can tell you how.
Podcast Length: 31:57
Especially in Hollywood, but actress and filmmaker Naomi McDougall Jones is proving them wrong. She reveals to Margaret E Ward how she not only crowdfunded but created an an engaged and loyal audience for her very first film. It's a 'how to' that can be translated to any industry. Naomi also shares her New York backstory, auditioning relentlessly for two years, while not letting the rejection get her down. But most importantly, Naomi reveals the mental gearshift that took her from struggling actress to empowered filmmaker and venture capitalist, while blazing a feminist trail through patriarchal Hollywood. It's another translatable 'how to', no matter your industry. And lastly, she tells Margaret about the mental gymnastics that took place in her own mind right before standing on that revered TED stage to tell the world what it's really like to be a woman in Hollywood. "It's dicey trying to take down the industry you're also trying to be a part of," she says. But Naomi rolled that dice, took the risk and here she tells her story of how it's all paying off.
Podcast Length: 30:53
Professor Aoife McLysaght discovered a totally new human gene. Her day job is as a genetic scientist, but there was a time when she was going to give it all up. After an unfriendly encounter with a colleague who queried her holiday leave, she sent a frank email to her boss. "Guess what," she wrote, "I read books that aren't all science books, I have friends, I like to do other things, and if it's all or nothing, I'll take nothing, thank you very much." The email was well received and served as a turning point for the dedicated scientist, especially when it came to motherhood and balancing family life, which was an "adjustment."
The groundbreaking scientist could no longer play with the clock and work another 20 minutes, because creche pick-up time is creche pick-up time. She talks to Margaret E Ward about the practical applications of her work to our daily lives, finding her path, and her secret to sustainable success in a busy, demanding world.