More than 150 leading businesses and professionals attended FPM’s high-level summit at Leopardstown Racecourse in Dublin on the 6th October 2022 to hear world-class insights on legacy leadership from a panel of well-known business and sports leaders.

The event, organised by FPM accountants in association with The Dublin Network, and chaired by global networking guru Kingsley Aikens, explored themes around growth, sustainability, people management and succession planning for the transition of successful businesses to existing and future generations.

Opening the Summit, FPM Managing Director Feargal McCormack stressed the importance of ensuring that businesses incorporate continuity into their strategy and develop leaders at all levels of the organisation:

“Leadership is about vision, passion, people, team-building, the ability to deliver change and leave a lasting legacy. It’s about planning to win, expecting to win, prioritising communication and integrity and ensuring that the people in your organisation are your greatest ambassadors. Working together everyone achieves more.”

 Colin Harris, Co-Founder of the Dublin Summit alongside Les Dunne commented:

“The Dublin Network is about bringing great leaders together to make incredible things happen. This was evident by looking at the calibre of attendees and speakers and the networking during the event. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership with FPM in the years to come.”

Leadership Summit Line-up

Adam Dalton, CEO and Co-Founder of Robotify, an edtech platform delivering virtual robotics education to school students around the world, spoke about the importance of having a vision, funds to finance it and good people to support it. Adam described his company’s incredible journey to date, including a partnership with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Robotify’s recent acquisition by Imagine Learning, a major digital education provider in the US.

Lorraine Heskin, founder and CEO of the award-winning Gourmet Food Parlour spoke about her leadership challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lorraine highlighted the importance of resilience and outlined how her company is coping with the current recruitment challenges in her sector. Lorraine stressed the importance of finding the right people for the right role, the need to create a culture that supports staff retention and the desirability of bringing onboard strong people with the right skills to create greater success for the organisation.

Dermot Mannion, whose distinguished career in the airline industry has included leadership positions as President of Group Support Services at Emirates, CEO at Aer Lingus and more recently, Deputy Chairman of Royal Brunei Airlines, spoke about some of the major challenges facing the aviation sector including net zero and the need to overcome technological barriers in air traffic control and IT infrastructure. In common with the other panellists, Dermot stressed the importance of effective people management. “If you want to be surrounded by the best people, you need to create an environment where people can be the best version of themselves.”

James McCarthy, the Dublin Senior Gaelic Football Captain whose career highlights to date include an impressive 28 medal titles, spoke about the value of leadership in action along with hard work, effective goal setting, mental resilience and a positive team ethos where everyone focuses on the greater good.

The Dublin Leadership Summit, an event organised by FPM and The Dublin Network, was the inaugural event in a planned series of annual leadership summits.