Ed Guiney, co-founder and CEO of Element Pictures, has spent his career blending creative instinct with strategic acumen to shape one of Europe’s most influential film and television production companies. From early days making student shorts at Trinity College Dublin to producing globally acclaimed works like Room, The Favourite, and Normal People, Guiney’s journey is rooted in a deep love of storytelling and a clear understanding of how to bring it to market.
In this episode of Arts Matters, Guiney tells Alison Cowzer that he sees intellectual property ownership as the cornerstone of a sustainable industry and is a strong advocate for supporting emerging writers through initiatives like the Story House festival. While others speculate on the impact of AI, Guiney remains confident in the irreplaceable value of human creativity.
In October, Grant Thornton announced that it was hiring an extra 1,000 staff to meet heightened demand for accountancy and professional services. However, the firm’s managing partner admits that the biggest challenge will be funding the right people. In a podcast with Ian Kehoe, Michael McAteer said that securing the right talent was the biggest issue facing many businesses right now, and that many new employees would have to come from Europe and Asia.
In a wide-ranging interview, McAteer also talks about the impact of the pandemic upon society, businesses and the workplace, and gives his economic outlook for 2022 and beyond. He believes that the surge in dealmaking will continue, although he expects a number of smaller trading businesses to fold when the state supports end.
In his 2009 book Sinn Féin and the Politics of Left Republicanism, Eoin Ó Broin identified eight theses about the party and its future success. In a thought-provoking interview with the economist Stephen Kinsella, Ó Broin, now Sinn Féin spokesperson on housing, revisits the eight thesis, and also talks about what has changed in the 13 years since the book was published.
He also talks about the party’s recent electoral success, Sinn Fein’s command structure and potential coalition partners. Kinsella and Ó Broin talk at length about the party’s housing strategy, institutional investors and why the debate about housing needs to change.
For 21 years Pat Farrell has, in one way or another, been involved in transferring money from foreign investors to property developers. When Farrell was head of the Irish Banking Federation from 2000 to 2008, Irish banks basically acted as a middleman between European savers and Irish property projects.
After that model blew up, the banks got out of property lending. But property deals still need funding, so a new model emerged: direct funding of deals by investors. And because the people of Ireland don’t have that kind of capital lying around, the investors have come mainly from overseas. Farrell’s new job is as CEO of Irish Institutional Property, an industry group. He represents German, Dutch, British and American investors who are looking to buy and build in Ireland.
On this podcast he makes the case that direct funding is safer, explains why the private sector has been unable to deliver affordable homes, and looks back on his time in banking.
Oliver Callan talks about Charles J Haughey, his accomplishments, his many contradictions and the role satire played in defining him with the author of the new Haughey biography, Gary Murphy.
As he enters the sixth decade of his career in the energy industry, Eddie O’Connor is keen to open a new chapter with Supernode, the company he chairs and owns 50 per cent of. His plan is to transport energy over long distances from renewable generation areas like Ireland’s windswept seaboard to big urban demand centres across Europe. On this podcast, he takes Thomas Hubert from the geopolitical trends influencing climate action to the reality of technology deployment on the ground – and warns that obstacles to innovation in Ireland may force Supernode to emigrate.
Peter Oborne worked with Boris Johnson when the UK's prime minister was editor of The Spectator. He considered him a brilliant editor but he has in recent years chronicled his lies and evasions and the intersection between British politics and its media. In this podcast with Dion Fanning he discusses where Boris Johnson stands following the revelations about Downing Street parties last Christmas and speculates where the Conservative Party will go when they ditch him.
In his early twenties, Andrew Lynch launched a fashion show and established a business selling ponchos. He even considered becoming a sports agent. However, after his mother told him to get a “real job”, he entered the world of recruitment.
Today, his company, Mason Alexander, employs 45 people in Ireland and Portugal and works with a range of scaling young companies and blue-chip corporates. The company initially specialised in finance and legal recruitment but has expanded into IT, recruiting and placing people in pharmaceutical jobs.
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, Lynch talks about the company’s journey to date and reveals ambitious new plans to launch Mason Alexander in the US in 2022. He explains why he does not fear failure, learning from mistakes and how the pandemic has changed the workplace and the world of recruitment.
In 2016, Stuart Lancaster returned to coaching alongside Leo Cullen at Leinster. It brought to an end a challenging period in his career. In this wide ranging interview with Paul Flynn he talks about the toughest moments when he lost his job at England, how Leinster and Leo Cullen have allowed him to regain his love of coaching and the curiosity that drives his passion for leadership.
Having lost its tax advantage, Patrick Walsh believes Ireland needs to develop a new economic strategy based around start-ups and innovation-led businesses. However, for that to happen, the founder and chief executive of Dogpatch Labs argues that the government will have to radically improve the suite of tax and policy packages available to entrepreneurs.
In a wide-ranging interview with Ian Kehoe, Walsh talks about developing Ireland’s start-up ecosystem across the country, the battle for talent, and what entrepreneurs can learn from the IRFU.
Walsh also talks about launching Dogpatch seven years ago, and how the co-working space and accelerator has grown to almost 40,000 sq ft in size over 3 levels. Having taken over the NDRC, he also talks about his plans for the national accelerator.
Manchester United appear to be on the right track with the appointment of Ralf Rangnick but in this podcast with Andy Green who was a vocal critic of the Glazers, he talks to Dion Fanning about the strategy under the owners and why they aren't going anywhere.
