Ireland’s ‘largest unofficial trade mission’ took place recently in London

Tony Cuddihy

In terms of Irish business and the economy, the annual EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ CEO Retreat is one of the most important weeks of the year.

It may be officially titled as a ‘Retreat’, but with 16-hour days spread over a week in Oxford and London, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year’s™ annual gathering of Irish CEOs and the new 2018 finalists is more like a boot camp for business people.

This year’s event, which took place in May, began in Oxford and moved on to London, with more than 100 entrepreneurs travelling for ‘Ireland’s largest unofficial trade mission’, including this year’s 24 finalists who employ more than 2,700 people between them.

Over the course of the week, they would attend speeches and seminars and take lessons in leadership from a vast number of successful business people and sports stars, including the former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley and former Olympian Ben Hunt-Davis.

“I found it incredibly beneficial,” says Niall McGarry, the founder of Maximum Media and finalist in 2017.

No airs and graces

“The retreat is where you get to meet the people, you go to college with them for a couple of days, you have a drink with them, you’ve a bite to eat with them, you’re up early on a bus with them – even if you’re among people who run really successful businesses, you’re in a ‘school tour’ environment and it brings everything back to basics.

“There’s no airs and graces, no-one’s rolling up in their Jags, it’s rough and ready in some respects and that’s what makes it brilliant as well.

“I think what separates the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ program from every other awards program is the fact that they literally pick you up from Ireland and bring you into a learning zone with a plethora of other brilliant business leaders.”

“They drop you off in a different country for a week to build your relationships, to build your knowledge, to take some time out from the business that you’re running day to day to get the helicopter view. No other award program does that.

“Nobody else takes everybody else away for the week, puts them up, looks after them, brings them to meet other business leaders and you’ve got a week-long energy.

“You come back with this wealth of connections.”

You can keep track of this year’s finalists on the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ website, on Twitter, on Facebook and on LinkedIn.

The 2018 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ finalists are:

Emerging Category