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.
The search for weapons of mass destruction was the story that dominated the build up to the war in Iraq 18 years ago. One of its architects was Donald Rumsfeld, who died this week. In this podcast, his biographer Andrew Cockburn talks to Dion Fanning about the failure to think through that invasion and why Rumsfeld contributed so much to that disastrous war.
Scurri, the delivery management software company founded by Wexford entrepreneur Rory O’Connor, was growing impressively before the crisis. The pandemic, however, accelerated that growth exponentially with an increasing number of retailers looking to improve their online footprint. And to capitalise on “being in the right place at the right time”, Scurri has just raised €9 million in funding to expand its offer and triple its workforce. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, O’Connor talks about the genesis of the business, and how a decision to pivot from B2C to a B2B model transformed the company. He also talks about dealing with Brexit, the future of the high street, and raising funds during a pandemic. O'Connor also reflects on his own career journey – from his time as an executive with Waterford Crystal to working as a consultant with Intel and Heineken. And he explains the advantages of running a business from Wexford.
As a National Hunt jockey, Richard Dunwoody's life was defined by his obsession: obsession to win and, more importantly, an obsession not to lose. Since retiring more than 20 years ago, he has set himself different challenges, travelling to the North and South Pole among other places. But he has had a smaller world since the pandemic hit and that has caused him to reflect as well.
One year on from her first interview with The Currency, the founder of Tour America and Cruise Holidays looks back on a pandemic she then expected to be an “emergency” and later turned into a protracted crisis. Mary McKenna says what has saved her travel agency was the retained profits she had left in the business – along with a mighty team effort to “do the right thing” for customers forced to cancel their holidays. With fresh bookings now flowing in, the only infectious thing in McKenna’s interview with Thomas Hubert is her optimism.
The economist Colm McCarthy has a wide range of views across a wide range of subjects – and he is not afraid to share them. In this podcast with Alison Cowzer, McCarthy assesses the state’s wartime response to Covid-19, explains why tax increases are unavoidable, and interrogates the structural malfunction linking Irish banks to the housing crisis. McCarthy, who has authored two major government reports on cost-cutting in the public sector, also talks about the attitude of policymakers to fiscal responsibility, the contradiction of Ireland’s emissions policy, and what he would like to see included in the forthcoming National Development Plan. A lifelong football fan, he also talks about the economics of the ill-fated European Super League, why the European Commission allows anti-competitive rules in football, and argues for more state involvement in the FAI.
As an equity analyst with Susquehanna, Gareth Hickey found he had a large reading list, and not enough time to get through it. While The Economist offered a narrated audio service of its content, there was no one place that offered narrated journalism from a selection of publications. So, in 2015, he decided to build one. Today, the company he leads, Noa, is nearing 50,000 monthly active listeners and has commercial relationships with The New York Times, The Economist, the Washington Post and the Irish Times. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, he talks about Noa's struggles to land its first customers, the rise of narrated content and how he signed up the Harvard Business Review. Hickey also talks about the company’s business model, and explains why publishers need to embrace new methods of delivery to attract a younger audience. He reveals the company’s international expansion plans, and how, having already raised €1.2m, it will launch its Series A funding round later this year.
Tommie Gorman's analysis and expertise made him one of the most trusted journalists in Ireland. As he prepares to begin contributing to The Currency, he analyses the state of Irish political life, north and south of the border.
Andy Reid's career became a symbol for the debate that still surrounds Irish football when he was exiled from Giovanni Trapattoni's Ireland squad following a late night argument with the manager in a hotel bar. As he makes a career as a coach, he says Ireland needs to accept that it has talented players and why the media and social media today can be so damaging for young sportspeople.
In 1983, Ciaran Rowsome quit his job with the IDA to launch Flextime, a Dublin company that helps businesses manage their employee time and attendance. Today, 400 customers and 200,000 users across Europe use Flextime to manage the time and attendance of staff. The company's solution is used by the Oireachtas in Ireland and the UK passport office. In this podcast with Cait Caden, Rowsome talks about his entrepreneurial journey and how he got it off the ground through “hard graft and an overdraft”. Rowsome spoke about the company's expansion into Britain, where it trades as Multitime, and his plan to open a new office in Manchester in the coming months. He also reveals how he is working with Enterprise Ireland to develop a new product to export into new markets. Rowsome talks about the rise of flexible working, the future of the office, and how Covid-19 has changed the relationship between employers and employees.
Rebecca Moynihan has made important interventions in the housing debate but can the Labour party be heard above the noise? She talks to Dion Fanning about why the state must take control of the housing crisis, the Dublin Bay South by-election and why the Labour Party still has to deal with the austerity legacy.
