Interview by Brad Balfour
Portrait by Thomas Lau

The Industrial Development Agency of Ireland (IDA) is a semi-independent, government-funded agency designed to encourage foreign investment to Ireland. The North American CEO, Enda Connolly, has worked with companies such as Intel, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Coca-Cola to establish a corporate presence in Ireland. By funneling foreign investment to where it is needed when it is needed, the IDA helps manage the foreign capital that has fueled Ireland's economic growth. A self-professed "career IDA person," Connolly, a Dublin native, joined the agency after graduating from University College Dublin, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in English and History. He "learned about the business" working with agricultural companies in the difficult times of the 1980's. He has worked to develop both small Irish software companies and large electronics facilities. Since his appointment as IDA North America CEO in '96, he has been evangelistic in re-orientating Ireland's focus to embrace e-business as a fundamental change critical to its target community. Married with two children, Connolly and family have become perfect examples of the modern Irish, straddling traditional and contemporary cultures.

--Brad Balfour/Charlie Veprek

What does the IDA do?

I'm in the business of marketing Ireland as a location for business. My product comprises of offering an interesting blend between a relatively new, highly educated, group of people and the actual finesse of the Irish cultural background. A number of American companies established in Ireland have talked about how the Irish people balance work with pleasure. They're all enthused about the fact that the young Irish people in their operation will work really hard all day, and yet can still balance this with traditional pleasures. They have a great work ethic, unlike what has been stereotypically depicted.

Is there a balance between culture and business in Ireland?

Certainly. One of the dangers and challenges for Ireland in the future is that we don't lose that balance. There is a new entrepreneurial generation which will be involved in e-business and that generation is adopting many of the sort of cultural attributes that you know and understand here in the United States.

The danger for Ireland is that the more successful the country becomes, the people might lose contact with much of the cultural essence that's part of the Irish character. And that's characterized by our ability to have deep conversations about religion and politics and literature, to get into all that good stuff!

How did the present economical successes come about?

The current prosperity was derived from the program for national recovery put in place by Charles Haughy's government in '87. Alongside that was the decision by the previous government to control spending and boost the economy. Ireland became very marketable and we started to use the work of building up a skill base and capability that had been done in the previous 15 years. From decisions taken in the '60s, the Irish educational system was modernized and reformed radically. We now had coming into the marketplace the Irish Generation X. The Irish people took pains to make sure this generation was not going to leave without an education. During the '80s we were exporting 30,000 to 50,000 people a year who were getting jobs with software and publishing companies elsewhere. This was a totally different experience from previous generations of emigrants who had to work their way up from the lowest rung of the employment ladder. This '80s generation was coming into companies and showing how good they were. They were the ambassadors showing that this could be done. This wasn't Irish Americans saying that Ireland was great, this was young Irish people showing who they were. We were out there putting the message to the people at the top. Companies were seeing it in practical terms in the type of young people on the E'OU"d· Success came as a response to these foreign companies who came and established themselves in Ireland. Irish companies had to be up to the standards required to service those foreign companies. This has created a whole entrepreneurial culture. That's the essence of the success story.

Do you have certain models which you use as blueprints to entice potential investors?

Fundamentally, we work off two essential guidelines: we locate where the business areas are which match up with what our resources can offer and we highlight Ireland to certain companies as being pliable enough to modify our facilities to their needs. We've been clear for a long time about the types of business we're interested in having in Ireland. So the first thing we're clear about is the type of product we want to sell. Beyond that it's all about marketing the product. Thus far our strategy has been a one-to-one "Direct Marketing of Ireland" program.

We research the sectors we should make contact with and approach them at the highest levels of management. It's all about getting to know the decision-makers and influential people within these companies so that we can build an intimate relationship. The first time Motorola visited Ireland was 16 years before they turned the first sod for their factory. They have a big facility in Dublin now which was established in 1989. Our job was to build and maintain the relationship and to keep them up to speed with how situations were developing until the timing was favorable for them. In my view this has been one of the very ingredients to our success. We have constantly positioned the products to actually meet the needs of our clients and listen to what they are telling us.

What is the next stage?

We have a very straightforward role: to bring investment into Ireland. There are three elements to the role we will play. There is still a job for us to do in terms of helping build up some of what I would call the "lesser-advantaged'' areas of the country. A lot of our focus now is to encourage companies to develop in so called remote areas. The second part of our strategy is to be a bit more selective about the types of jobs we bring into Ireland. Also we have to integrate and network existing operations. Where we might have a manufacturing operation, we start looking to bring in service and customer service operations building on the existing company so it becomes more integrated. It's what we call "building up" and Connolly and "skilling up" the value of the operations in Ireland. That's where we'll devote a lot of our effort and energy in the next few years, working with both new and existing clients in this respect. The third part of our strategy is to go with what is the new way of business-e-business-and develop Ireland's capabilities in that regard. We have a natural disadvantage in that a lot of e-business is built around very large, high capacity communication cables which tends to exist around the big cities of Europe. We must be able to offer e-commerce the same facilities. So the government with our prompting has contracted with a major carrier to bring that capacity into Ireland at a cost that makes it competitive. Vast quantities of fiber optics, underwritten by the government, will provide unlimited capacity in and out of the country before the demand is there. This kind of investment puts us on a level playing field with everyone else. Our message to the world and e-commerce at the moment is; Ireland is the place to do it and make money.

Is the IDA a government agency?

It's what you'd call a semi-independent. We're funded by the Government but we have our own board. This consists of business people from Ireland who make the directives, policy decisions and decide on grant allocations. Our semi-independent nature allows us a unique standing.

How has the IDA helped Irish entrepreneurs?

A lot of young Irish people were coming out of schools and colleges and wanted to set up small software operations. The banks did not know how to deal with such cutting edge incentives; there were no venture capital funds in Ireland at the time. The IDA stepped in as a service to provide for such needs and ceded a lot of small grants and financial support. Many of the early entrepreneurs are financially successful now due to our pioneering efforts.

Where does creativity and the Irish nature and culture play in this?

People seem to think that the "nerds" who write software aren't creative but that's not so. Indeed, one of the reasons why we have such great software companies is because the very creativity we have used in the past to write books, plays and music is now being used to write software.