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.
Liam Cunningham gave up his career as an electrician with the ESB to become an actor in his twenties. It was in recent years, however, that he rose to worldwide fame for his role as Ser Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones. Cunningham’s take on the impact the pandemic has had on the film and television industry is worth listening to but he is not shy about discussing politics, gender pay gap and lockdown, as well as turning down a role in Titanic.
Four years ago, Ken Cahill, the co-founder and CEO of SilverCloud asked his board for permission to move to Boston. The company, which provides online mental health programmes to health services, insurers and corporates, had expanded rapidly in Ireland and the UK, but to break into the US, Cahill felt he needed to be on the ground. The move has paid off, with the company securing new clients and, last year, some $16m in new investment from blue-chip backers. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, Cahill, talks about the SilverCloud journey, and outlines its ambitious expansion plans, which includes entering the Australian and German markets. He talks about the key milestones since co-founding the business in 2012, including its first contract with the NHS and growing headcount from four to 90. Cahill talks about the company’s B2B business model, the importance of sales and gives his take on entrepreneurship, management and success. He also talks about his own entrepreneurial journey, including what he learned from a previous business failure.
Two years ago, Goodbody Stockbrokers launched Best 8, an equal-weighted stock list that represented the firm’s top global equity ideas. The idea was to introduce investors to a select number of blue-chip international stocks that were liquid. And, every day, the team at the Active Trading Desk at Goodbody sit down and assess the composition of the list. In this sponsored podcast, Padraig Rourke, head of the Active Trading Desk, talks about the strategy and tactics of the Best 8 – how investors can buy-in, the anticipated return, and the decision-making process behind the stocks that are picked. Rourke also talks through a range of stocks that have been included in the Best 8, including its successful investment in Southwest Airlines and its less successful holding in Walmart. He also talks about Allianz, Disney, and Visa, and explains why his team is always looking for a theme behind each investment.
In his 30-year career in journalism, Des Gibson has edited four different national newspapers – The Irish Daily Star, The Herald, The Sunday World and the Star on Sunday. As he launches a new boutique media and communications consultancy firm, Gibson reflects on his career in media and the challenges facing the sector. He provides the inside story of the rise and fall of the Star on Sunday, and how the experience taught him to take a hands-on role on the finances of all the newspapers he edited after its collapse. He talks about the culture of mistrust that existed within INM in the past and outlines how he restructured The Herald and dealt with legacy legal issues at The Sunday World. He talks about the business figures he most admires, and gives the elevator pitch for his new business.
Sarah Keane's time as CEO at Swim Ireland has involved managing crises. When she took over in 2004, the sport was dealing with the consequences of the George Gibney and Derry O'Rourke scandals. This is a past, she says, the sport must always be aware of, especially as many are reminded of it through the 'Where is George Gibney?' podcast. The sport is currently living through a different kind of crisis and it doesn't know what kind of sport will emerge when the pandemic is over or how many people, young people in particular, will be lost to the sport.
Pat Kiely was part of the executive team that launched TV3 in 1998 and stayed with the television channel for 22 years – first as commercial director and then as managing director. Having worked under five different owners and overseen the rebrand of TV3 to Virgin Media Television, he stepped down from the role last year. This week, he unveiled his new media business, BiggerStage, which aims to create content for international markets, deepen commercial partnerships and develop talent.
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, Kiely talks about the BiggerStage business model, the mechanics of launching a company in the midst of a pandemic, and how ‘purpose’ helped him convince three industry heavy hitters to join his company. Kiely also talks about his journey in TV3 - from launching the channel to helping steer it through the financial crash to selling it to Liberty Global. He also reveals why he did not apply for the CEO role at the FAI, explains his business philosophies, and talks about his time as an adman with Saatchi & Saatchi and DDFH&B.
The madness can spread. Eliot Higgins is the founder of Bellingcat and in his new book he traces the origins of "an intelligence agency for the people" and the challenges the world faces in an age of disinformation
Pete Lunn was a behavioural economist at the ESRI, working on policies to help people make better decisions, when Covid-19 hit. Since then, as a part of NPHET, he's been drafted into the fight against the virus. In this podcast with Sean Keyes, he talks about how behavioural economics insights have informed the government's response to the virus. And, with the end starting to come into view, he explains what behavioural economics has to offer the country beyond Covid – as well as the replication crisis and behavioural economists as "white hat" marketers.
In a new book, Empireland, Sathnam Sanghera makes a compelling argument that so much of modern Britain from Brexit to the country's attitudes to race, stem from the British Empire and the reluctance to confront the history of that empire frankly. For Irish people who became enraged by the ignorance about Ireland demonstrated by many leading Brexiteers, there is much to consider here. There may also be lessons for us in how we deal with our own complicated history.
Former Dublin football star Bernard Brogan has transitioned from the pitch into entrepreneurship, launching both Legacy Communications and PepTalk. Along the way, he realised that many of the lessons he learned in elite sport are transferable into the business arena. In this podcast, Brogan, who has won seven All Ireland titles and four All Star awards, identifies five things that business leaders can learn from the world of sport. Like in sport, he says that a crisis is an opportunity to innovate in business, while he also discusses why culture lives or dies with middle management. With most employees working from home, Brogan also talks about replacing the changing room/watercooler moments. A chartered accountant, Brogan also talks about his own entrepreneurial journey, revealing that PepTalk is currently in the midst of a funding round to help fuel an international expansion strategy.
