During his visit to Galway, leading Irish businessman John Purdy also met with several members of Platform94’s scaling community from across the region.
The Founder and Chairman of Irish tech giant Ergo has lauded two well known West of Ireland businesses during his visit to Platform94 headquarters in Galway. John Purdy was a guest of Platform94 recently, where he led an event entitled From Start-Up to Tech Giant – Navigating the Scaling Journey.
The event was organised in partnership with Flynn O’Driscoll. During his presentation, Mr Purdy singled out Pat McDonagh of Supermac’s and the Hughes family of Portwest for their excellence in business acumen. Across two days at Platform94, he also met privately and shared his experience and insight with several members of Platform94’s scaling community from across Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal.
Addressing a captivated audience of more than 100 business people from across the West and Northwest on Thursday, Mr Purdy shared his fascinating entrepreneurial story. Speaking candidly, he told of his first-hand experience of the many challenges in business and how he navigated the international scaling landscape to build one of Ireland’s best known tech empires.
Keen to emphasise that businesses do not scale overnight, he described Ergo as “a 25-year-old startup” and said companies must continue to be entrepreneurial, regardless of size. “Scaling is something that you must do every day. Creating an entrepreneurial approach throughout your company and embedding that thought process into the whole team is crucial. You must always be looking and thinking about moving to the next level, always focusing on outcomes for your customers…that’s how you win business,” he added.
Turning his attention to the Supermac’s empire, Mr Purdy said Pat McDonagh has built “a phenomenal business” but stressed that “it didn’t happen overnight”. He praised the Galway businessman for many years of “hard work and sweat equity”, noting that sustainable growth – no matter what the business – happens day by day.
From humble beginnings operating out of a garage in Cabra in 1993, Ergo has grown to a €200 million business with almost 750 employees. It has spun off two companies along the way, including Irish unicorn Fenergo – currently valued at $1.1 billion – and Flowforma. In addition, it has acquired CDSoft, iSite, Micromail, Asystec and BoatyardX. In 2020, Mr Purdy made the decision to transition from CEO to Chairman of Ergo and is also an investor and advisor in several other companies.
Having built the company from the ground up, alongside his co-founder the late Tim Sheehy, the inspirational business leader told the audience in Platform94 that choosing the right business partner is just as big a decision as choosing a life partner. “The big conversations need to happen at a very early stage…and you don’t ever fight in front of the children,” he said.
Praising his wife Audrey for her ongoing support over the years, he turned his attention to family and why he chose not to hand over the business to his two sons. Pointing out that he never viewed Ergo as a family business, Mr Purdy said he has seen too many cases of rifts and divisions in families over many years in businessand he certainly wasn’t prepared to damage his relationship with his sons.
Speaking about succession planning, he singled out Mayo’s Portwest for special mention. “Portwest is now in its third generation but there is a huge amount of planning around succession within the company. If someone in the family wants a position, they must go and achieve a relevant university degree and then spend a number of years working with a competitor outside of Ireland. After that, they can join the company but they must work their way up. That’s how succession planning should be viewed,” he opined.
Aside from family divides, the biggest destroyer of company value is ego, according to Mr Purdy. “I’ve never met an entrepreneur in my 30 years in business who could turn water into wine, but I’ve met plenty who think they can,” he smiled.
Continuing, he said great leaders need vision, growth mindset, passion, emotional intelligence, empathy, humility, and exceptional execution resilience. “A lot of people confuse management and leadership. As business leaders, it’s always important to remember that you manage processes and situations, but you lead people. The job of a CEO is a lot like a football manager and it’s always about putting the very best team on the pitch. That team needs to be looked at on an ongoing basis and the reality is that not everyone will make it to the next level within a company,” he explained.
Reflecting on Mr Purdy’s visit, Platform94’s CEO Marie Donnellan said: “It was a privilege to welcome John to Platform94. His captivating and inspiring address embodied raw honesty and genuine sincerity in his commitment to helping others. This commitment was further evidenced by the number of companies within our regional scaling community that he met with one-to-one during his two-day visit, the impact of which will fuel innovation and drive growth. We are so grateful to John for his incredible generosity of time, of knowledge, and of support to our regional business leaders.”
