First Encounters: Natasha Fennell and Joanna Gardiner

Natasha Fennell worked at RTÉ, then as director of fundraising for Fianna Fáil, before training as a career and life coach. In 2005, she founded Stillwater Communications, a bilingual English and Irish language communications and training company, with her brother Cilian Fennell. Originally from Connemara, she lives in Ringsend, Dublin

I met Joanna through Helga Staunton, a mutual friend of our mothers. Joanna was the sophisticated city girl with lovely clothes; I was the Connemara girl who spoke Irish. When I was 18, I came to Dublin and stayed with Helga and her husband Hugh. I'd taken a year off between school and college to get work experience, then studied communications at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Joanna, who was studying in Trinity College Dublin, took me under her wing. We used to go to dinner parties at her friends' houses, meet for coffee, loved the cinema – we didn't do anything wild. Joanna was extremely kind to me.

I grew up on Maoínis island in Connemara, spent the first 11 years of my life there. They were great years, down at the beach all day long. We moved into Galway in 1979 when my father Desmond was teaching at the university. Joanna doesn’t speak Irish but didn’t dismiss it. It was important that she understood that it was important to me.

I left college, worked for a bit and was with Joanna the night she discovered she was pregnant with her first child. We were both 25 or 26. I was going travelling for three years. She was at home in Ireland, being all grown up and sensible. But we kept in touch the whole time.

Helga died while I was away. She was very young, 54. She had no daughters and had sort of adopted me. I loved her very much. We were profoundly lucky to have had her in our lives.

I went back to Australia, then to Thailand and taught English in Bangkok for nine months.

When I came home, Joanna asked me to be godmother to her second child, Tom, and that brought me back into the fold completely. Now Joanna and I go away to a special place in Portugal with two other friends every September for a “fix it” holiday. We talk about what we want to get out of the year that’s coming. What work or personal issues we might have. Listen. Offer solutions.

Joanna's probably one of the most non-
judgemental people I've ever met as well as being kind, loyal and unbelievably generous. She has an inner strength and a great wry sense of humour. She's an amazing friend. We've never had a fight, not even one bad word.

We know each other's families very well. We adore our parents, but they're at that stage where some of them aren't that well – that can be challenging. So we support each other hugely. It's a lifelong friendship.

Natasha Fennell will speak on the art of confidence for leaders at Going for Growth national forum in Barberstown Castle on September 24th. See goingforgrowth.com


Joanna Gardiner is the managing director of skincare pharmaceutical business Ovelle Pharmaceuticals, the Dundalk firm founded by her grandfather in 1934. A former chairwoman of Dundalk Institute of Technology, Gardiner lives in Annagassan in Co Louth, with her husband Fergus and children Sophie, Tom and Patrick

I met Natasha as a child: my mother and her’s had a mutual friend, Helga Staunton. But as a child, Natasha always had her nose in a book. At 10, her sister Sorcha was more fun. When we were 18, Helga said you must meet up with Natasha. From that point on, we got on great.

I’m from Dundalk but I was in first year in Trinity, living in a flat on Eglinton Road. You would have expected Natasha to be the country girl, but she was sophisticated, well read, had opinions on things. As a friend she was incredibly caring, interested in the detail of your life as well as being great fun – she laughs all the time.

It was the late 1980s. We were trying to be sophisticated, had dinner parties. We never actually lived together, but we travelled. On a holiday to Turkey together, just after college, I lost my bag and had to wear Natasha’s clothes. We were very poor, the whole holiday cost £200 and we had £100 to spend – there was no budget for clothes.

I studied business in Trinity, interned with Enterprise Ireland, then worked in advertising. I started my family in my mid-20s; Natasha went travelling when I had one child and by the time she came back I had two.

We kept in touch by letter and picked up where we had left off when she came back.

What’s really nice now is that we’ve both become women in business. In 2000, I went into the sales end of the family business created by my grandfather in 1934.

Our lives are intertwined. Our friends and families know each other and I know we’ll always be friends. I spent many happy times in her home in Salthill in Galway, with her brothers and sisters. Natasha is incredibly sociable and loves to have parties – great parties with people of all ages. We go away every September with a couple of female friends and go through what’s happening in each other’s lives. It’s nearly a life strategy session. A lot of exciting things have come out of that.

Natasha is godmother to my second child, Tom; she’s brilliant with my kids. We never drifted apart because I had children and she didn’t. She lives in Ringsend but she’ll often come to Dundalk or I’ll go down to Dublin for a night.

Looking back, we were always ambitious, although maybe we weren’t able to articulate it at the time. That may be the common thread. It’s not about being a businesswoman, it’s that we both have to really believe in what we’re doing.

We’ve never had a falling-out, not a cross word. Genuinely never, ever. The best thing about Natasha is the constant level of support she gives me, her there-ness.