Entrepreneurs – Smurfit MBA Blog

IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year Awards 2017

From the entrance of the Clayton Hotel Ballsbridge in Dublin the grandeur of the venue is noticeable as soon as you set foot in the lobby. To mark the occasion of the 2017 IMAGE Businesswoman of the year awards the Clayton Ballsbridge was garnished with rich pink and purple imagery and decorations. Inside the ballroom the tables were detailed extremely tastefully with gifts for everyone in attendance. What a fitting location for such a special, meaningful and glamorous event I thought to myself as I made my way through the reception and into the bar to meet some of the inspirational women attending, some of whom were also up for nomination.

The IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year Awards recognises all the women who have worked with passion, commitment and perseverance throughout their careers. Some of these women have come from abroad, inherited their family business, created a new company, found solutions to improve our society or developed remarkable innovations. Being able to listen to their stories on the night was truly inspiring and an evening I will never forget. It is not often that you get to sit in a room full of the most powerful businesswomen in Ireland, women so gracious, authentic and kind and also to see the human side of these outstanding women before, during and after the awards.

The key insight that really resonated with me from the incredible award winners are that you should never give up, you should keep working hard, face failure and stand back up, if you do that no one can stop you on the path to success. Be a leader, don’t be afraid to stand up. Be humble because nothing in life can be accomplished alone. Be balanced, there is no reason why you cannot be successful and have a family. “Follow your intuition”, said one of them, “you must trust yourself for others to trust you”.

This event is proof that everyone can achieve great things once the mind and body are focused on an objective. We are all different and the main lesson is that we should play to our strengths. The skills required to win each individual award were all different, the women in the room encompassing a wide spectrum of talents and socio-economic backgrounds. The amazing women have understood their strengths, capabilities and used them to great effect.

This year’s IMAGE Businesswoman of The Year Awards has been completely delightful, it was fantastic to spend it with everyone who attended from UCD, everyone at the table was extremely proud to see Orla Nugent present on the night. I will definitely be back again as I set out to not only make my mark on the MBA at Smurfit but also the Irish business world upon graduation.

I hope that new generations find inspiration from the experiences and the courage of the business women of today and that the coming years will be filled with the accomplishments of the women of tomorrow.

Sauyith Cueva, Full Time MBA 2017-2018

The Entrepreneurship Club

One could argue that the main draw each Wednesday evening was the fine canapes and wine; but with over 1400 man hours of discussions and learning about entrepreneurship that were enabled this semester, the bait wasn’t really needed but was much appreciated.

The opportunity to get a first-hand interpretation of experiences from industry stalwarts, serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, business gurus and a class of peers with a common hunger to solve a problem, any problem, has been truly beneficial.

The UCD Entrepreneurship Series, brought to fruition by The UCD College of Business and The Smurfit MBA Entrepreneurship Club, has been a successful collaboration under the stewardship of the Entrepreneur in Residence Majella Murphy and the MBA students. The legacy of which we hope continues into the future.

This year we saw the journey of UCD alumni, as they tackled the highs and lows of setting up their own establishments and heard their account of navigating the often-misunderstood entrepreneurial landscape. From idea generation, problem resolution to monetization, the forum has not only dealt with the necessary guidelines and tools but also efficaciously highlighted the bravado of the human spirit.

Two of the events gained substantial fame, the first was the visit of Patrick McGuinness and the latter comprised of a panel of Venture capitalists. Not surprisingly though, since two of the greatest fears before pursuing down this route seem to be the risk and raising finance. Patrick, the man behind the phrase FOMO or Fear of Missing Out, spoke of transitioning into entrepreneurship through a 10% approach (time, energy and funds) while the Venture Capital event dismissed several urban legends that we all perceived existed in the game.

Some of us came into the MBA with entrepreneurship experience and others came in with entrepreneurial ambitions, but rest assured most of us now have the aspiration to pursue our own path someday soon.

Entrepreneur. Chart with keywords and icons

Schedule of events

From UCD Smurfit to Startup CEO

Journeys from UCD Smurfit to Startup CEOs.

Lukas Decker (Coindrum)
Ronan Byrne (Clearsight Innovations)
Stephen Quinn (Jobbio)

Their personal journey, the hows and whys, the choices and sacrifices, the highs and lows.

Inside the Incubator @ GEC

Insight into the Guinness Enterprise Centre, their offerings, introduction to current start-ups residing there and the opportunities to get involved.

Social Enterprise Scaling – CoderDojo

Bill Liao, CoderDojo’s first angel investor, as he recounts the story of the rapid global growth of their movement.

Unspoken Lessons from Failure

“It is fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure”.

The 10% Entrepreneur

Choosing between the stability of a traditional career and the freedom of entrepreneurship?

Inspiring Creativity & Innovation @ Google

How does Google manage to generate, create, innovate and launch new products and services in an endless flow?

The Best Source of Funding Depends on…

“The best source of funding depends on where the company is at in their journey, what their needs are and the terms on the table for any particular deal.”

Hear three of Ireland’s leading and most respected Venture Capitalists and Advisors:

Brian Caulfield
John O’Sullivan
Michael Culligan

Joined by two entrepreneurs:

Neal O’Gorman (Artomatix)
Myles Murray (PMD Solutions)

Innovation – Accenture-style

With the launch of their Centre for Innovation, “The Dock”, hot off the press, what is Accenture’s strategy and structure around Innovation and what role does The Dock play in that?

Join Eva Maguire, designer of the internal innovation ecosystem at The Dock, to find out how they plan to make it work!

Social Entrepreneurship: A Serious Consideration

Have you ever considered that a social enterprise may not be much different from a commercial one?

Emma Walshe (COO Foodcloud)
Kate Dobbyn (MD Seachange Foundation)
Sinead McCool (Enactus Ireland)
Gain insight into what pursuing a social enterprise entails.

Real examples of what it takes to be successful, the challenges, the supports available and how sustainability can be achieved.

BREXIT: Opportunity or Threat for Irish Entrepreneurs?

“Turning the challenge of Brexit into an opportunity: How are entrepreneurs and their representative bodies preparing for Brexit?”

A stellar panel of entrepreneurs and senior representatives from government bodies for an insightful discussion on the impact Brexit, how and what contingencies have been developed, and what the government and the entrepreneurial representative and support bodies are doing to assist with the impact it will have on the entrepreneurial community in Ireland

Donal Hayes, Director, Tipperary Cheese
Paul Byrne, CEO, Currency Fair
Eamonn Molloy, Assistant Secretary, Britain & NI Affairs Section, Department of the Taoiseach
John McGrane, Director General, British Irish Chamber of Commerce
Leo McAdams, Divisional Manager, Financial Services & BPO, Enterprise Ireland

To find out more about the Smurfit MBA and various MBA Clubs, click here.

What is the Secret to Being a Successful Entrepreneur?

What is the secret to being a successful Entrepreneur? This is probably the question I am most eager to find the answer to during my MBA programme. So many students raised hands when asked whether they want to start up their own business. I believe they are just looking for the recipe for success like me.

I started to look for the answer by joining the Entrepreneurship Club. The experience of planning and organising the club event was so exciting and I hope to use the MBA Blog as a continuous discussion on entrepreneurship and as a means to promote the Entrepreneurship Club.

I would like to share stories of Chinese entrepreneur legends, founders of the two biggest internet giants in China; “Baidu” and “Alibaba” (Same business as Google and eBay respectively). It might be interesting to the people who are curious about what is happening in China and to people who are looking for inspiration on the way to building their commercial empire.

With the recent world record $150 Billion IPO filing of Alibaba, Jack Ma became the name known across the world. Jack Ma is the founder of the E-commerce giant Alibaba and is a stakeholder at Alipay, its sister company. He is now officially the richest man in China. Alibaba processes more goods than eBay and Amazon combined!

Jack Ma failed the university entrance exam three times, then graduated in 1988 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Hangzhou University (a university has never been notable before Jack became famous). In school, Ma was elected student chairman. He became a lecturer in English and International Trade after graduation.

At first he started building websites for Chinese companies with the help of friends in the US. At a conference in 2010, Ma revealed that he has never actually written a line of code nor made one sale to a customer. He encountered a computer for the first time at the age of 33.

Robin Li (Li Yanhong) is the co-founder of the Chinese search engine Baidu and is ranked as the seventh richest man in mainland China with a net worth of US$9.6 billion as of September 2015. He is ranked as 119^th richest man in the world.

Li studied information management at Peking University (the Top one University in China) and the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. In 2000 he founded Baidu. Li developed the Rankdex site-scoring algorithm for search engine page ranking, which was awarded a U.S. patent. He later used this technology for the Baidu search engine.

From the stories of these two achievers in business in China, maybe we can make a conclusion that the education background and the knowledge are not the determining factor for success. Entrepreneurship is something beyond that. It is about grabbing the opportunity, being insistent, and turning an idea into a profitable business.

Talking about insistence, I couldn’t forget to mention the most admirable Chinese businessman for me – Chu Shijian.

Mr. Chu is the China’s former “tobacco king” who built a struggling tobacco firm into the country’s largest and most profitable cigarette producer in the 1980s. Chu, however, was jailed for life on corruption charges in 1998. After he was released on medical parole in 2002, Chu started growing oranges on 160 hectares of land in the mountains of southwest China’s Yunnan Province.

The “Chu’s Orange” is named after 85-year-old Chu Shijian. Today, his fruit farm produces 8,000 tons of oranges a year, generating 30 million yuan (US$ 4.95 million) in annual profits. Most of Chu’s oranges are sold online (a sample successful story of e-commerce as well).

I cited this story to show that the success of an entrepreneur could be temporary, failure and setbacks can happen along the way. True entrepreneurs will have the power to re-start and embrace the success again.

Ying Wu ~ Full-Time MBA