“I took a drink and it all went away” Pat Phelan talks booze, Ferraris and making millions

Niamh Maher

It’s a classic rags to riches tale.

The former CEO of Trustev Pat Phelan admits to spending most of the 1990s in an alcohol-induced stupor, eventually transforming his life to become one of Ireland’s best-known tech entrepreneurs.

He told The Capital B‘s Nick Webb that, after he gave up drinking, he discovered he had a head for business – he has since sold a business for an incredible €44m.

Listen in at 5.29 for the full interview or continue reading below:

Pat told JOE’s business podcast that, despite showing an early interest in tech, it almost slipped through his fingers due to his alcoholism.

“I always had it, I was always messing around with computers in the 80s. I’d great hopes for myself, then I took a drink and all that went away, he revealed. “It got to a stage where I didn’t give up the drink, the drink gave up me,” he said.

“Around 1996 I started taking expeditions into AA. You’re then drinking against your will because you know you want to stop. Around the turn of the century I got very sick and I knew the game was up; thanks be to God my family stood by me and helped me get back on my feet again, the amazing thing is it all happened very quickly from there.”

So after kicking the booze for good, how did Pat manage to turn things around?

“I was lost really, I was working as a chef, then I went back to college and got my qualifications, Myself and Jim Ryan opened a recruitment agency in Kuala Lumpar and I moved on rapidly from there. I opened a chain of internet call centres, from there it was a phone card company, from there it was Cubic, then it was Trustev. It all sounds magical, but you can imagine how much heavy lifting had to be done in the middle.”

After selling Trustev last year, Pat took his millions and headed for the bright lights of New York City, where he’s now the Senior Vice President of TransUnion.

He also tweets his morning cup of coffee without fail.