Don O’Neill doesn’t speak in slogans. He speaks in stories — slow-burning, salt-air-soaked, stitched through with a kind of quiet resolve. Raised in the small seaside town of Ballyheigue, County Kerry, O’Neill grew up sketching gowns in secret, dreaming of runways far from the Atlantic’s reach. But even as he dressed icons like Oprah and Michelle Obama, the pulse of home never left his designs.
His journey wasn’t a straight line. It zigzagged through kitchens and catwalks, through heartbreak and hard-earned success. O’Neill trained in design in Paris while working restaurant shifts at night. He spent years as Creative Director at THEIA, only to see the brand shutter suddenly — a moment that cracked open his identity but didn’t break his belief. In this episode of Arts Matters, he speaks with Alison Cowzer. Arts Matters is sponsored by HLB Ireland.
The law firm Whitney Moore represented McCambridge Bread in its lengthy battle with Joseph Brennan Bakeries and the Irish firm Waterwipes in an alleged infringement case against a rival start-up. It also helped thwart a Dylan Thomas copyright claim in the Irish courts. In the final episode of Brand Matters, joint managing partner Emma Richmond and commercial litigation partner Robin Hayes talk about protecting your brand, the legal process, and some of the cases they have worked on. They also talk about building the brand of a law firm in an increasingly crowded marketplace. The series is supported by Whitney Moore.
The world we live in is changing, and that change is accelerating and deepening like never before. Society. Politics. Technology. Environment. Generative AI. The list goes on, and on.
But what does this transformation mean for companies and business leaders? In an age of exponential disruption, how can businesses continue to transform and evolve?
To answer these questions, and much more besides, Ian Kehoe is joined by Amy Ball, Business Transformation Leader with PwC Ireland, as part of the PwC Leadership Exchange Series.
In this podcast, Ball offers practical advice to business leaders on how to prepare a company for transformation, how to develop a culture of innovation, and how to ensure buy-in from staff and stakeholders.
Ball also talks about successful examples of transformation projects, delves into the growth of GenAI, and explains why the fear of the unknown is the biggest inhibitor to change. This podcast is sponsored by PwC.
As joint managing partner of recruitment firm The Panel, Paul McArdle works with candidates and companies in the recruitment process, trying to match the right person with the right role.
In his job, he has seen the growing importance of the employer brand, from the values that underpin a business to how it treats its most important asset – its staff. In the latest edition of Brand Matters, McArdle talks to Alison Cowzer about the growing importance of employer branding, why it is a tool for attracting, retaining, and motivating employees, and how, when done correctly, it can add to the bottom line. The series is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
Paul Sheeran has built a major business selling some of the world’s most exclusive luxury watch and jewellery brands. But to achieve that success, he has had to convince those brands to trust him with their pieces and customers to come to his stores. So, how has it done it? And what is he planning next?
In this edition of Brand Matters, he talks to Alison Cowzer about the business of luxury brands - and how he carved out his niche in the industry. The series is supported by Whitney Moore.
Brand strategy and design business Zero-G has worked with everyone from global multinationals to governments to ambitious start-ups on their brand and identity. Think Smurfit Kappa, LetsGetChecked, Bord na Móna and the Irish government. In this episode of Brand Matters, its founding partner and managing director Ciarán ÓGaora talks about the creative process that underpins his company’s award-winning work, what brands and branding actually mean - and how they can resonate. The series is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
Environmental, social, governance. ESG. Just three letters. But those three letters can have a major impact on businesses – from their engagement with staff to customers to investors. David McGee, ESG leader for PwC in Ireland, joins Ian Kehoe in the podcast studio to discuss how companies can ensure they are doing the right thing at the right time to deliver the right outcomes.
McGee talks about how companies can embed ESG into their business, offers advice for businesses striving to achieve net zero, and explains obligations under the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
This podcast is sponsored by PwC.
Tom Keogh and his family have done something few others have done – build an international brand around their name and their land. In this episode of Brand Matters, a podcast series sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore, the man behind Keogh’s Crisps tells Alison Cowzer about creating the product from scratch, and why they decided to build the brand about the family name and the family farm. He also talks about innovation, international expansion, and building a lasting family legacy.
As a co-founder and the creative director of Boys + Girls, Rory Hamilton has left his fingerprints on some of the best-known ad campaigns in recent years. But just where do the ideas come from? And how does a creative agency transform the wants and needs of a client into a campaign that can be rolled across multiple media forms? These are just some of the areas Hamilton discusses in this edition of Brand Matters with Alison Cowzer, a podcast series sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
Debbie Byrne has two key roles within An Post. As managing director of its retail business, she is responsible for rolling out its suite of financial products. But she also has responsibility for An Post’s strategic brand development. In this episode of Brand Matters, she explains to Alison Cowzer the symbiotic relationship between the two roles. She also talks about transitioning the An Post brand, stakeholder capitalism, and the importance of doing the right thing for the right reason. Brand Matters is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
Michael Lynn was once the poster boy for the Celtic Tiger. He went on the Late Late Show and gave away an apartment. But as his story unravelled, he became, as Michael O'Farrell puts it in this interview, "the canary in the coalmine" for the crash.
O'Farrell talks to Dion Fanning in this podcast about his new book on Lynn and his journalistic pursuit of Michael Lynn since 2008.
