Broadly Speaking

At 105 centimetres or 3' 5" tall, Sinéad Burke has become a booming voice in the global fashion world. Talking equality with US Vice Presidents and people such as Oprah, speaking not once, but twice, at Davos and being a contributing editor to British Vogue, Sinéad has the goal of designing a world that works for everyone. However, she wasn't always so clear about her purpose nor was she always so accepting of herself. She tells Margaret E Ward about the major turning point that led her to radical self acceptance and to her guiding mantra: "I'm not changing for anybody." As an activist and academic who found her voice online, Sinéad also discusses the struggle to "define" your elevator pitch when you wear many hats. And despite all of this remarkable success, at just 28, she still loses her nerve. She also reveals her personal pep talk process to us.

Ruth Curran knows the answer to both of those questions. Ruth travels the world to find the best CEOs, CFOs and CIOs for a whole range of high-level organisations. She’s managing partner at MERC, Ireland’s leading executive search firm – a role she balances with being a mother to four children all under the age of 12. In the latest Broadly Speaking podcast, Ruth talks us through the key attributes needed for leaders in today’s world, what organisations are looking for before they hire and the trends that she sees emerging.

Managing a team of 2,000 employees is a huge responsibility, but Anne O’Leary takes it all in her stride. As chief executive of Vodafone Ireland, she has worked hard to build an inclusive, flexible and empathetic culture. Anne does not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to people management. Instead she is focused on understanding what works for individual employees and their lives outside the office. She not only talks the talk on work-life balance but this former triathlete, who still has a passion for exercise, lives it too.  

When entrepreneur Nikki Evans quit her well-paid management consulting job in London to move home to Ireland during the recession and start a pre-paid gift card business, people thought she was bonkers. But last year, over a decade after launching her business and a few pivots later, she sold her company for €6 million. Now Nikki is chief executive of the fintech business she founded, Perfect Card, and is keen to keep growing it. She has built an “output-focused” work culture and considers her ability to make decisions to be one of her biggest strengths as an entrepreneur. Click Here To Download Broadly Speaking, hosted by Margaret E. Ward, goes behind the scenes to find out what motivates, frustrates and intrigues the people who lead. Featuring in-depth interviews with founders, innovators and senior executives, this leadership and management podcast is for people who want to lead or are fascinated by those who do.

It was an awkward dinner and a "make or break" moment. Louise Grubb, co-founder and CEO of TriviumVet was going to have to explain how her wonderful pharmaceutical business couldn't pay the dinner bill. She was in Copenhagen wining and dining a man who would become a major and game-changing distributor for her nutraceutical product. Thankfully he paid the bill and Louise lived to tell the glorious tale, which she does so here to Margaret E Ward. From the daughter of a shopkeeper to being a "lost" dietician, Louise recounts her story of entrepreneurial success where she started not one but three businesses and now lives in the home of her dreams overlooking the sea. If you need a pep talk in tenacity and a serving of doggedness, Louise's story will solve both of those needs. Podcast Length: 32:24     Broadly Speaking, hosted by Margaret E. Ward, goes behind the scenes to find out what motivates, frustrates and intrigues the people who lead. Featuring in-depth interviews with founders, innovators and senior ex

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 Click Here To Download  

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 Click Here To Download

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 Click Here To Download

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 Click Here To Download

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

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. Click Here To Download

GirlCrew - it's a global online platform and app that helps women make new friends, wherever they are in the world. It all started when a young woman, left alone due to coupled-up friends, needed someone to go to a concert with. A short note posted online, in search of a buddy, turned into GirlCrew. It has since saved women from bad dates, helped people overcome challenges at work and even sourced witnesses for weddings. Meet its co-founders, yes co-founders, because three heads are better than one. Margaret E Ward talks to Elva Carri, Aine Mulloy and Pamela Newenham who reveal their unlikely paths to entrepreneurship, which involved making and selling draught excluders and selling raffle tickets for a box of chocolates. Listen to three inspiring women talk about taking on Mark Zuckerberg and the world, one meet-up at a time. They discuss their strategies, teamwork and making big business decisions over social media.

Fionnuala Meehan had "no clear career path" after her arts degree. So she took a job in a call centre where she was regularly pranked by German teenagers. She had her first child while still working in the call centre, then later moving on to work for internet giant AOL. Next stop was Google, where she now manages 650 staff as head of Irish operations, while also raising three children. How does she do it? She's on the 5.30pm train home, she gets 8 hours sleep a night and she coaches, instead of "manages", her team. Fionnuala reveals her simple tools for resilience, how to understand millennials in order to get the best out of them and the home life set-up that allows her to work at such a high level. The tech boss also talks switching-off and if it's true what they say about Google - are the beanbags and free food just a ploy to get employees to work longer hours? Click Here To Download

Dr Ciara Clancy, accidental entrepreneur, physiotherapist, and 20-something CEO, has just been named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. She plasters her office not with accolades and press clippings, but with her "why." In her office you'll find thank you cards and letters all over the walls, from the thousands of people her technology has helped. Ciara is CEO of Beats Medical, an app that helps people with Parkinson's manage their pain at home. Whether you're an employee, unemployed, or self-employed, listen to how her remarkable story unfolded, from 22-year-old physiotherapist to 28-year-old CEO, who saved her company when it ran out of money. Succeeding in business and life, comes down to one fundamental principle says Ciara, a principle that has never let her or her team down. Ciara tells Margaret E Ward her inspiring story of not fitting into the entrepreneurial mould, and how her childhood was not littered with "mini businesses." If you're someone who cares deeply about others and longs to make impact, but

Businessman Feargal Quinn's first book Crowning the Consumer sold more than 100,000 copies and was translated into 14 languages. It came after building a national chain of grocery stores, Superquinn, which he started at the age of 23. How did he do it? By always having the advantage over his competitor. And how did he do that? By making the customer front and centre of his every move. He held meetings in the grocery aisles, ran 'win your weight in groceries' competitions, and was the first person to play music in a supermarket. And when every other grocery store in Ireland was down on sales, because of foot and mouth disease, Superquinn's sales were up. How? Listen to a business pro have his career dissected by Margaret E Ward, where Feargal, who went on to become a Senator in the Irish parliament, reveals his number one business principle. A clue? It involves an old Australian toy. This was one of Feargal's last ever interviews before his death in April 2019. And a bonus segment: Our panel of experts also ta

Ellvena Graham, OBE, is currently chairman of ESB, Ireland's electricity supply board, but in 2008 she was a director in the Royal Bank of Scotland when it lost £24.3bn - the biggest corporate loss in British history. How did the daughter of a mechanic from a rural town survive? She tells Margaret E Ward, through deep exhales, how she navigated those unimaginable days of the financial crash, what they taught her and how anyone can lean into crisis. There is a way out, she says, but solutions take time. Ellvena talks about the practicalities of keeping your cool when a storm rages around you, why comfort zones are sterile grounds for growth and how she wishes she spread her wings earlier. She is also very real about good long nights of sleep, and other basic hacks that can sustain you in business. And our panel of experts talk about the sticky issue of boundaries - what to do when your boss rings and emails you at home.

When the recession hit in 2008, Bobby Kerr's national chain of more than 100 coffee shops, Insomnia, was on the frontline. "We were a luxury item," he tells Margaret E Ward. How do you survive that? By 2008, Bobby was a well-seasoned businessman used to risk. He had, after all, left a very comfortable job at 36, five days after the birth of his fourth child, to start what would become Insomnia. Between then and now, he had also weathered a fire and high high-street rents. So how did he navigate the recession? He talks us through the various strategies that he employed that kept his footfall at boom-time levels, even though Dublin city had lost 100,000 people to emigration. But sailing the choppy waters of a financial crash hasn't been his only challenge, he has also survived a serious form of cancer. Not one of these things have broken him, just strengthened and changed him for the better. Our panel also discusses how to navigate the waters outside of your professional comfort zone. Click Here To Download

Ireland's first female private investigator (PI) Sandra Mara, cracked her first case at 9. She found not only her passion but also fulfilment and decided to follow her father into the family business of private investigations. "That's no job for a woman," he said as he tried desperately to throw her off course. Sandra, however, went on to have a lengthy and successful career as Ireland's first ever professional female PI, working all around the world, writing three books, while navigating death threats and raising her children. How did she do it all? And how did she manage the stress? Sandra reveals all to Margaret E Ward. And there's more. In our advice slot Margaret talks through tactics, with three experts, to help introverts succeed in the workplace. She also meets two business leaders to discuss what thought leadership actually is and why it should matter to your company. Click Here To Download

"I need help" - the 3 most powerful words any manager or entrepreneur can say. Aine Kerr is a serial risk taker. She left her permanent pensionable teaching job at 20, to retrain as a journalist. She left her high-profile political correspondent role in the Irish Independent to join international media start-up, Storyful, during the recession. She then moved to New York to become Facebook's manager of Journalism Partnerships. And now, Aine is back in business start-up phase, co-founding Kinzen, an app that puts people, around the world, in control of their news. Aine talks us through her decision-making processes, and the key practices that have allowed her to take big risks and dream big. She also reveals her weaknesses in business and how she overcomes them thanks to one nifty thought. Lastly, Aine talks us through negotiating titles in the workplace and how to manage staff if you're an ambitious perfectionist, who finds it hard to delegate. Click Here To Download