Because of its applicability to almost any profession, job or role, the MBA qualification really opens your eyes to career paths you never considered
something that most leaders recognise as hugely important, so I look forward to seeing what opportunities these new connections will bring. “I think the credibility that an award like this offers is something that will be particularly valuable from a recruitment perspective as I progress through my career and explore new opportunities in the future. In my current role, although I am not a ‘shrinking violet’ by any stretch, I feel the award has given a real boost to my own self-belief and confidence as a leader, something that hopefully will further inspire me in my day-to-day work.” Why did you decide to study for your MBA at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and were you happy with your decision to do so? “I am so grateful that I completed my MBA at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Aside from the convenient location of the school in terms of my home and place of work, one of the key draws to Smurfit was the quality of the MBA programme on offer. The school is triple accredited (AMBA, AACSB and EQUIS) and its MBA programme consistently ranks among the top 100 business schools and MBA programmes on the Financial Times list. “The range of scholarship opportunities available was also appealing. I was lucky enough to be an Aspire scholarship recipient, which covered 50 per cent of my tuition fees. Without this financial support, it is unlikely that I would have been in a position to complete my studies.
“The quality and diversity of the faculty and students was also a factor, and the extra-curricular opportunities such as the GNAM programme (Global Network of Advanced Management) was very attractive, providing me with the fantastic opportunity to attend Yale School of Management for a module.” You oversaw record fundraising revenues at children’s hospice LauraLynn – can you tell us a bit more about this achievement and what was required to make it happen? “I took over as CEO of LauraLynn on 1 May 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic really took hold of both the nation and the world. We immediately went into crisis response mode, which most healthcare organisations actually do quite well. “However, from a fundraising perspective, we were anticipating the worst. Many of our core fundraising activities and major revenue generators up to that point had been related to large‑scale, in-person events such as our charity ball, marathons and other community challenges. With the impending lock-down restrictions, all of these mass gathering events were cancelled, meaning we quickly had to pivot our fundraising strategy to adopt an online-based model. “Thankfully, we were able to achieve this transition quite rapidly, as we had piloted a Facebook fundraiser in late 2019 and that gave us a blueprint to work from. This essentially gave us ‘first‑mover advantage’ in the space, and the success
of the subsequent social media challenges (walking, push-ups, skipping, swimming, dog-walking, etc) was unprecedented. These challenges provided an outlet to a nation of people who were largely confined to their homes and gardens and desperately seeking opportunities to combat the stress of Covid-19 in a safe and rewarding way. “We also saw a real sense of national community spirit, particularly in the first year of the pandemic. Charities and voluntary organisations
across almost all sectors benefitted immensely.
Individual and corporate donors came forward with one-off donations, while in Ireland, the print media, television and radio broadcasters rallied behind charities by encouraging their viewership to support them with online donations. “In 2019, LauraLynn conducted a benchmarking exercise that indicated only the top three per cent of charities in Ireland were achieving annual revenues in excess of €10 million. These were, as expected, massive charity powerhouses with large, well-established fundraising teams and nationwide public awareness levels. LauraLynn’s fundraising income in that year was €4.3 million. During Covid-19, this rose to €8.9 million in 2020 and to €10.1 million in 2021, which goes some way towards expressing the scale of our success.”
32 | Ambition | MARCH 2023
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