CEO Update: Welcoming Anne O’Leary as new Ibec President

Dear member,

I am delighted to announce that Anne O’Leary, Head of Meta Ireland has been elected as the Ibec President for 2024 to 2025.

Anne O’Leary joined Meta in September 2022 as the Vice President of Mid-Market Global Business Group in EMEA and in May 2023, Anne was appointed Head of Meta Ireland to oversee the community and culture across three locations in Dublin, Meath and Cork. Anne holds seats on the boards of the ESRI and Greencore and previously spent nine years as CEO of Vodafone Ireland.

I wish to extend my thanks to outgoing Ibec President, Paul Duffy, Senior Vice President, Pfizer Global Supply for his tireless work and dedication to Irish business over the past year. Congratulations too to Colin Hunt CEO of AIB who has been appointed Deputy President for the upcoming year.

Their appointments took place yesterday at the annual Ibec AGM. The meeting proceeded September’s National Council which included a valuable discussion with Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke TD which focused on competitiveness, the challenges of the European regulatory environment for businesses and the importance of the interplay between SMEs and multinationals to Ireland’s continued economic success.

Ibec’s Annual President’s Dinner took place last night at the RDS in Dublin with a record attendance of over 800 people.

In her keynote address (available here), Anne noted that Ireland’s economy is in a very strong position, thanks to factors such as our openness to trade, capital, and people. She said that we must continue to be agile and responsive to new investment, support Irish businesses in internationalising, and ensure that Ireland remains a place where careers can grow and develop.

I have no doubt that Anne’s deep understanding of the global business landscape in Ireland will be of real benefit to Ibec and we are very fortunate to have her working on behalf of the organisation. I look forward to working closely with her over the next 12 months and wish her every success.

We were honoured once again to have guests representing business, media, civil society and politics at the Ibec President’s Dinner. We were especially pleased to be joined by An Taoiseach, Simon Harris TD recently returned from his visit to Ukraine and Poland. In a very positive speech for business, he acknowledged that it is apparent that small businesses are struggling across the country and this needs to be urgently tackled. The Government will be taking action to address this and he committed to establishing a Better Regulation Initiative Unit in Government to examine and assess the impact and challenge of regulation, including that impacting on the labour market, posed on business in Ireland, a recommendation taken directly from Ibec’s Budget 2025 submission.

A key theme reflected in both Ibec’s General Election and Budget campaigns is the importance of improved pace of delivery for major projects and it is very positive to see the Taoiseach’s prioritisation of the infrastructure agenda.

As the Taoiseach himself acknowledged last night, lifelong learning is integral part of ensuring our future economic success. For some time, Ibec has been lobbying the Government to spend the €2 billion surplus contributed by employers to the National Training Fund. It is a significant win for Ibec and our members, that last night he committed to unlocking the National Training Fund before the end of this year. We look forward to exploring these themes further when he visits Ibec on Tuesday as part our Meet the Leaders General Election series of events.

As always if you have any feedback or comments, please let me know.

Thank you for your continued support.

Regards,

Danny McCoy

CEO

Ibec