In 2001, Peter McKenna was on the corporate fast track at Smurfit in the publishing business. But a conversation with mentor Paddy Wright planted the seed for a dramatic career pivot as stadium director of Croke Park. When he took over, the stadium was under construction and loss-making. Last year, it had annual revenues of €132 million and paid a €16 million dividend to the GAA.
McKenna still serves as stadium director but he is also in charge of the GAA’s commercial arrangements and corporate partnerships.
In this episode of Sports Matters, he talks about making the stadium as a financial contributor to the GAA, the decision to take control of the association’s streaming service, and the lessons from his career.
Sports Matters is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
How do you reinvent your business model to remain relevant and to protect your company for the future?
It is a question that many CEOs are trying to answer. And they are trying to answer it at a time of major change, disruption and transformation - from technological advancements to shifting geopolitical sands to heightened economic uncertainty. In this episode of The Tech Agenda, Amy Ball, Transformation Leader, PwC Ireland, talks to Ian Kehoe about the business of business reinvention. Ball also talks about the results of PwC’s 2025 CEO survey, discusses how businesses can prepare for disruption, and gives her assessment on emerging issues such as climate investment and GenAI. The Tech Agenda podcast series is sponsored by PwC.
We now have full sight of the returns achieved by Cerberus on the first wave of distressed debt it acquired in Ireland following the financial crisis. Thomas Hubert joins Ian Kehoe to discuss the US vulture fund's performance and how it compares between deals with major Irish providers of bad loans, such as Nama and Ulster Bank, and other European countries covered by Cerberus's growing Irish office. A major series of articles to be published this week covers the figures in detail.
The numbers tell their own story. More than 120,000 people are employed in the financial services industry in Ireland across 8,800 companies, with the sector generating €6.8 billion annually in tax revenues.
However, a new report from the consultancy firm EY suggests that it can grow further. If key competitive advantages and opportunities are harnessed, the report argues that Ireland’s financial services industry could grow by 26 per cent by 2028. The report, “Building a Better Financial Services Ireland: Accelerate to Elevate”, also states that employment in the sector can increase by 34 per cent, or 30,000 jobs over the baseline, ‘business as usual’ projection in that same period.
In this podcast, Colin Ryan, Financial Services Managing Partner, EY Ireland, talks to Ian Kehoe about how that vision can become a reality and the policy choices Ireland needs to take to elevate the financial services industry in the years ahead.
Ryan examines the five core strategic areas for the future of the sector -Technological Infrastructure, Talent, International Trade, Regulatory and Legal Framework, and Macroeconomic fundamentals - and explains how Ireland can develop its offering in each area by taking bold and decisive actions.
Ryan talks to Kehoe about the wider international environment and the steps being taken by other jurisdictions to develop compelling financial services offerings.
Ryan also delves into the future of financial services, the rise of green finance, and the key issues raised by the 140 senior financial services leaders across Ireland who were interviewed for the report
This podcast has been produced in association with EY.
As the Irish Ambassador to Malaysia, it fell to Dan Mulhall to find and repatriate Irish citizens impacted by the horrific 2004 Tsunami. He arrived at his next posting, in Berlin, when “Ireland was in the dog house” after its economy collapsed. Mulhall toured the country extensively, with a simple message: “Ireland has its troubles. We need help from you but don't worry, we have strength, and we will come back and we will repay every single penny of the money that we borrow from the European Union.”
From Berlin, he moved to London, at a time when Ireland’s nearest neighbour was preparing for the Brexit ballot, and Mulhall was there after the vote as relations between Ireland and the UK deteriorated. And, for his final posting, he was dispatched to Washington in the middle of Donald Trump’s first term.
Now retired from the diplomatic corps, he holds a number of consultancy positions in business and academia and is working on a project to develop an animated children's brand based on leprechauns from Carlingford.
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, Mulhall talks about his career, diplomacy, Brexit, and the decision by Israel to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
George Hamilton was the voice of many of Irish sports greatest moments. From Italia '90 to Giants Stadium, Hamilton called the games that shaped a nation. He talks to Dion Fanning about being part of the Lost Age of broadcasting coverage, the vision of the former Head of Sport at RTÉ, the late Tim O’Connor, and why he had to leave.
Trevor Birney’s career has been defined by curiosity. As the producer of the Kneecap Movie, he might be heading to the Oscars next year, but he has written a book which tells the story of the Loughinisland Massacre and the day he was arrested for making a film about it. He talks to Dion Fanning about creativity in Northern Ireland, Say Nothing and the film he has produced about Saipan.
Pat Rabbitte is well-schooled in the art of government formation. He was there in 1994 when the Rainbow coalition came together, and he was there too in 2011 when the Labour Party coalesced with Fine Gael after the collapse of both the economy and Fianna Fail. In the former government, he was a member of Democratic Left, while in the latter, he was a Labour cabinet minister. In between, he helped negotiate a merger of the two left-wing parties, while also serving a stint as the leader of the Labour Party.
As the thorny issue of government formation continues, Rabbitte joins Ian Kehoe to discuss why Labour should not enter government, if it should merge with the Social Democrats, and whether Sinn Fein can ever offer a true path to power.
Lucinda Creighton, a former Fine Gael TD and one-time Minister of State for European Affairs, believes that the general election campaign was lacklustre, and was defined by a lack of big ideas or policy debate.
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, she argues that the lack of policy clash is due to the fact that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have moved to the centre-left and are now coalescing around the same ideas.
Plus, Creighton argues that the only thing that differentiated most of the political parties was how much money they were willing to spend soliciting votes. In this podcast, she also talks about Ireland’s waning influence in Europe, the issue of government formation, and ideology in politics.
In his new book 'Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom', Carl Bernstein tells the story of how he found his calling, and meaning, in journalism. It is an absorbing tale, crammed with anecdotes about the characters he stumbled across through the journey.
Bernstein occupied a rarified place in the world of journalism. Together with his fellow Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, he ranks among the two most famous journalists in the world, renowned for their work bringing down President Nixon. He understands power, and the importance of holding it to account.
In this podcast with Sam Smyth, he delves into the relationship between power and politics, examining the impact of Trump on US society. He also talks about the decision by Jeff Bezos to pull an editorial by The Washington Post endorsing Kamala Harris, his reporting on the Vatican, and his recollections of his early days in the newsroom.
The attorney and law professor Barry Scheck was one of the first to link the complicated science of DNA with criminal law back in the 1990s. In the decades that followed, The Innocence Project, the non-profit organisation that he co-founded with Peter Neufeld, has used DNA evidence to help exonerate hundreds of people who were wrongly convicted. In this podcast with his friend Sam Smyth, Scheck talks about the evolution of science in criminal trials and explores how AI could be the next breakthrough. He talks about the work of the Innocence Project, the nature of criminal defence, and some of his most prominent cases, including OJ Simpson and Louise Woodward.
