For professional athletes, retirement doesn’t come in the form of a gradual career peak—it arrives suddenly, often through injury or physical decline. Unlike those in other careers who can steadily build toward financial security, many athletes find themselves facing uncertainty in their early 30s. In this episode of Sports Matters, former rugby players Niall Woods and Marty Moore discuss the challenges of transitioning out of the game, from financial instability to the loss of identity and structure. Speaking to Ian Kehoe, they explore the psychological and practical difficulties of life after professional sport and the importance of preparation for the next chapter. Sports Matters is sponsored by Whitney Moore.
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.
Working at the coalface of the office market, Andrew Lynch, the co-founder of co-working business Huckletree, has spent the past 18 months adapting, renegotiating, and trying to refine the Huckletree product. The company has five workspaces in London and Manchester and a 30,000 sq ft Dublin building also.
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, he talks about navigating the business through the crisis, and why it is primed for expansion in the post Covid-world. He also talks about flexible working, the future of the office and creating curated eco-systems of companies.
After ten years living in the UK, he also talks about why he has just returned to Dublin – and why he expects many more to follow suit.
In this podcast, Dion Fanning talks to Jarrod Kimber, the acclaimed Australian cricket writer, about what the Azeem Rafiq story tells us about English cricket and more broadly professional sport.
As the dust settles on COP26 and the publication of the Government's Climate Action Plan, Thomas Hubert is joined by The Currency's columnists Ed Brophy and Stephen Kinsella and contributing journalist John Reynolds. From a common assessment that both high-profile events fell well short of the level of commitment needed to tackle climate change, they draw lessons for the changes now required of the state, businesses, voters and the foundations of democracy and capitalism underpinning their interactions.
Sean FitzPatrick's death has led many to reflect on his time at Anglo Irish Bank. In this podcast Tom Lyons - whose book with Brian Carey, The FitzPatrick Tapes, details the rise and fall of the bank - talks to Dion Fanning about the Sean FitzPatrick he knew, the generational divide in business between those who feel FitzPatrick deserves more credit for his achievements and those who see those days as history, and how he will be remembered.
Jack Murray has always been fascinated with the art of storytelling. For 20 years, he has advised politicians and business leaders on how to tell their own story, while his company MediaHQ has built software to help people share stories. Now, he has just published a book on the topic called: “The Magic Slice: How to master the art of storytelling for business.”
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, Murray explains the book's thesis – that companies with great stories get more funding, more customers, and more emotional reaction. He explains what companies need to do in order to hone their story and gives examples of companies who have got the process right – as well as those who have failed. He also talks about the science of storytelling, why he abandoned PowerPoint, and the journey that led to him writing the book.
