Burrows unruffled by whiff of whiskey treason

Outgoing Pernod Ricard chief is not planning to fade away in retirement, writes Una McCaffrey

There is a particular air about Richard Burrows, the erstwhile joint chief executive of French drinks giant, Pernod Ricard. He has a been-there done-that manner, wrapped at all times in a polite and quiet confidence. His voice is never raised and the idea of him losing his cool is simply ludicrous.

The impression is heightened by the location for this meeting - a mostly empty office at Bank of Ireland's headquarters in Dublin's Baggot Street. While others in the building are beavering away with numbers, Burrows seems to be having a calmer sort of life.

And why wouldn't he? After more than four decades of hard graft, even the begrudgers would allow him a bit of a rest as he enters retirement. The only problem is that Burrows does not appear content to buy into the idea of a completely quiet life.

The Bank of Ireland office proves the point - as governor (or chairman) of the bank since the middle of last year, Burrows needs a base inside its walls. Unsurprisingly, he says he is not at all intimidated by the Bank of Ireland position, which has the potential to throw him into all sorts of high-profile scrapes at a moment's notice (just ask AIB).

"I didn't need to think about it," he says. "It slotted in very well in terms of availability."

He says that his last 12 months at Pernod Ricard was "a rather more hectic year than expected" because of his employer's €11 billion takeover of Allied Domecq. Coming four years after the €9 billion acquisition of Seagram, the deal meant Burrows's five-year tenure as joint chief executive was "engaging and enjoyable".

He says he followed a "pretty strict routine" in Pernod Ricard, where he worked from 7.30am until 7.30pm. The upside was that his apartment was a seven-minute walk from Pernod's headquarters in Paris.

The firm, which is the second-largest wine and spirits operation in the world, was global and very decentralised, which Burrows says is "exactly the right way to run a company like that".

This meant that Burrows spent about half of every month travelling, stealing moments with his family along the way.

These days, Burrows's office base is in Bank of Ireland's Dublin headquarters, while he lives full-time at home in north county Dublin. This allows him to dedicate time to "getting to know the family again". Taking the job in Paris in 2000 meant leaving his four children, then in their 20s, behind in Dublin. He doesn't regret this, observing that there are two times in one's life where a radical move makes sense - when children are very young or when they are grown-up.

His new routine involves trips to Paris at least once a month for Pernod Ricard board meetings, but otherwise he is content to be back in his home town with a bit more time in his hands. "I don't miss it . . . I was ready to stop," he says, adding that "executively, there's a time to move on."

This readiness to slow down a touch makes sense, not because of Burrows's age (60), but because of the length of his career. He began working at 17 when he signed up with Stokes Brothers & Pim (a precursor to KPMG) as a trainee accountant. At 22, he was sent to London to study the world of management consulting, which was still a young business that had yet to make it to Dublin.

The plan was, however, complicated by events at home, where drinks company Irish Distillers was becoming involved in a complicated four-way merger with Waterford Glass, PJ Carroll and the Irish Glass Bottle Company.

The idea seems a bit crazy now but Burrows explains that scale was the fashion at the time, with conglomerates ruling the markets. The one glitch in the plan was that management at Irish Distillers was against it because they saw it as coming at the wrong time in the company's growth curve.

To help defend their case, they enlisted the help of Burrows, who was lent out on secondment. In 1971, with the battle won, he joined Irish Distillers full-time.

"I had become fascinated by the challenge of taking an industry which had become very run-down and putting it on a competitive footing," he says. This fascination saw Burrows succeed the now-deceased Kevin McCourt as chief executive of Irish Distillers in 1978.

This marked the end of what Burrows calls "a rather purple patch" for Irish Distillers, which had benefited from the Republic's entry to the then European Economic Community through trade liberalisation. The 1980s were, however, "different".

Irish Distillers's problems in a difficult market were compounded by its size. Consolidation, rather than conglomeration, was in vogue at that stage. "The big challenge was doing something about it," says Burrows, who set about examining ways that Irish Distillers could get into distribution too.

However, the decision was taken out of the company's hands. British group Grand Metropolitan launched a hostile bid for the company, the move prompting a separate "white knight" approach from Pernod Ricard. The ensuing battle lasted six months, with Pernod Ricard all the while fighting for access to Jameson, a brand that was considered to have strong international potential.

"It was quite a tough year," says Burrows now. "I was fairly young and there was a lot of public comment."

He recalls asking Grand Met if there would be any role for him in its larger organisation and being given "a short 'no'". It was all "a bit frightening for a young family".

Burrows pays tribute to Pernod Ricard here, acknowledging the French company would have been happier to take a small shareholding in Irish Distillers than to launch a full bid.

The "nice thing" in the end, he says, was that Jameson and Irish Distillers subsequently performed well for Pernod. This has seen sales of Jameson propelled to a projected two million cases this year (close to five times more than in 1988) and Burrows being projected into the joint top position in the company.

And so began the tranche of Burrows's career that ended at the end of last year. This, in turn, has allowed him to consider new opportunities. He has already taken on the chairmanship of the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), a move which has not won him adulation at home.

However, Burrows says it is "very much linked" with what he was doing. "It's consistent with what I was doing at Pernod Ricard," he says. Others, principally those who see Burrows as the face of Irish Distillers (and hence Irish whiskey), are not so sure. Burrows is, after all, still chairman of Irish Distillers.

He admits he was "caught unawares" by the public reaction to the move. "There is no conflict in my mind," he says, describing putting Irish whiskey back on the world map as one of his most treasured achievements.

"Maybe there was some confusion that this meant my interest in Jameson was going to take a back seat," he concludes.

Scotch aside, Burrows reckons he could now take on one additional role, with the Bank of Ireland job making it difficult to do this in the Republic. The UK is thus a better bet, with his preference for a non-executive position in branded consumer foods.

More pressing at the moment, however, is his plan to get back into his beloved sailing after the Parisian interruption.

With his Olympian son, David, he has purchased an Etchells, a small keel boat that has its own international sailing class. Their not-so-small ambition is to compete together in the Etchells world championship in Perth in November. Burrows stifles a laugh before explaining to this landlubber reporter that this does not actually involve sailing to Perth. The boat will travel by boat while he and David will fly.

This aside, in sailing and in business, the lesson Burrows offers to those interested is to "be tenacious" and to avoid being "blown off course". He explains this requires a clear idea of where you want to go and a determination to continue going there even if it becomes difficult.

"Create a strong vision of what you believe in and then be tenacious in following it," he says, polite and calm as always.