Exports are key for Enterprise chief

Growing up with nine sisters and three brothers, Julie Sinnamon learned to make herself heard from a young age. It is a skill that has no doubt stood to the affable Co Down woman, who was recently appointed the first female chief executive of Enterprise Ireland.

“It was a very busy house, a house where you had to stand up for yourself,” she says.

Sinnamon did her primary degree in business studies at the University of Ulster, selecting multinationals as the topic for her thesis following a visit to Dublin.

“When I came to Dublin, the most significant thing that hit me was the number of multinationals located here. I decided to do a thesis looking at the decisions of multinationals and the reasons they locate in particular places.”

She sought help from IDA Ireland, the State agency responsible for foreign direct investment, in researching the thesis, a move that would later help secure her a job at the government agency, where she stayed for 10 years.

“Subsequently, when I was back living in Dublin and the IDA was in recruitment mode, they contacted me and asked if I interested in applying for a role. Having the joined IDA, I really got most of my kicks out of working with indigenous companies.”

She says Enterprise Ireland has experienced a shift in the last two to three years to working with IDA Ireland, something which is helped by the fact she previously worked for the State agency. “There has been a major focus to ensure we have a joined-up approach with the IDA. In some cases, that means Enterprise Ireland offices overseas helping IDA companies.

“So much about achieving whatever you want to achieve is based on relationships. The fact that I previously worked in IDA means I have very strong personal relationships with people who were former colleagues in the organisation.”

As well as being a graduate of the University of Ulster, Sinnamon also completed a master’s at Harvard and the Stanford executive programme. She held a number of senior positions at Enterprise Ireland, including head of global business development, before being appointed chief executive in August of this year.

Fingers in pies
While there is no doubt Sinnamon is experienced and clearly well-qualified for her job at the helm, it is hard to gauge from her exactly what Enterprise Ireland does.

This is not because she doesn’t know, but rather the fact that the organisation seems to have its fingers in a lot of pies.

On paper, the Government agency is charged with supporting the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. However, as well as helping Irish- owned businesses achieve new export sales, it is pumping money into attracting foreign entrepreneurs to Ireland, commercialising third-level research and investigating the feasibility of new products.

It also supports programmes and initiatives such as CoderDojo, Kids in Tech and the Think Outside the Box student enterprise awards. “The short-term view is really about jobs. Jobs are the number one priority and Ireland must grow exports if it wants to grow jobs,” Sinnamon says.

With unemployment in Ireland at well over 400,000 people, emigration running at 50,000 a year, and more businesses closing their doors each week, the newly appointed chief executive has her hands full on the jobs front.

This year, the agency has led more than 18 trade missions abroad, to countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Africa, India, Nigeria and China, and helped a number of Irish businesses achieve new export sales.

One such company was Galway-based C&F Green Energy which secured a deal worth €15 million to supply wind turbines to the Italian market.

“We are working with over 3,500 companies and 50 per cent of their turnover is export-based. There are 4.5 million people in Ireland, but we produce food to feed 30 million people,” she says. “If you want to become a company of scale, you really have to export into the US and European markets.”

Trade mission destinations
As the list of trade mission destinations indicates, she says developing markets will be critical, adding that it is important for the agency to get into them now.

In the medium-term, the agency’s focus remains improving Ireland’s competitiveness and building links between indigenous Irish companies and foreign multinationals.

“We have regained a lot of the competitiveness we lost during the Celtic Tiger years,” she says. “What we need to do now as things pick up is make sure we don’t begin to lose that competitiveness again.

“A lot of work we are doing is on the lean manufacturing side, in terms of helping companies look right across all parts of the business system and become more effective and efficient at what they are doing.”

As part of this, Enterprise Ireland recently brought 29 companies on a trade mission to Japan to see Toyota’s manufacturing facility, where the lean business model was pioneered.

Level of sourcing
Another medium-term ambition is increasing the level of sourcing by multinationals from domestic suppliers which, Sinnamon says, could be a lot better. The agency has set up a team to focus on building links between multinationals and indigenous companies. as a result.

“We have the top multinationals in the world located in Ireland. Once [Irish] companies get into supplying the Irish division of the multinational, the opportunity is to supply the wider corporate base.”

“It’s about helping the multinationals based in Ireland to source Irish products for their global operations. They tend not to work country by country, so if you’re supplying them in Ireland and you meet all their specifications, the opportunity is to supply global operations.”

The agency’s long-term view seems to be that Ireland needs to concentrate on scaling up mid-sized companies and encouraging more IPOs. However, issues with bank credit make it more difficult for mid-sized companies to scale.

“If we really want to scale companies, we need to look at the funding instruments that are available in other countries. For example, development bonds are available in Germany for funding the growth of their middle-sized companies. This is something I believe could have a significant impact in Ireland in funding the scaling of companies.”

However, Sinnamon is quick to note that the agency is not giving up on Irish banks following the property crash and economic downturn. The agency “has been doing quite a bit of work with the banks” in facilitating their understanding of markets and sectors of the future,” she says.

“It is a very different skill set from the largely construction-related expertise that would have developed in the banks over the last 20 years, to be able to support software companies to grow. We would have put some people into the banks and have some bank staff seconded into Enterprise Ireland to help them become more comfortable in these new technology areas.

“The banks are going to be important going forward and they have to understand how these sectors work, what the sectors are and the dynamics of them.”

Venture capital funding
While she admits that many start-ups are going down the equity route instead of seeking bank funding, surviving on venture capital alone is not enough, she says.

“The availability of venture capital funding has probably never been as strong as it is at present. But it’s not an either/or situation. You need a strong base of venture funding available and a properly functioning banking system.”

As well as funding, among the main issues facing Enterprise Ireland’s client companies is skills shortages.

“From our engagement with the companies, we know that the skills issue is one of their biggest challenges. Therefore our support of things like CoderDojo is part of a long term initiative to try and address that issue.”

While the agency has been criticised in the past for an over concentration in established markets, she says the sanctioning of 20 new positions should help it break into more emerging markets.

“The easiest place to get sales is where you have existing customers already in place. We need to make sure companies are holding on to their share in existing established markets and developing positions in new markets.”

“The 20 additional posts are going to be focused on the developing markets and the high-growth markets. We are currently in the process of recruiting for those posts.

“High-growth markets are typically markets that you have to be committed to. They are not markets where you are going to have short-term successes so you really need to be committed. We are working to help companies understand how you to do business in those markets.”

Does she think there is a problem with scaling companies selling out? “Most of the engineering companies are family-owned companies so selling out too early hasn’t been a major feature of that sector. On the software side, there is a much greater tendency for entrepreneurs to start the company, get them to a size and then sell out.

“Selling out early can be good. In most cases, they get the money and they then get another idea and start again. We are seeing more serial entrepreneurs coming along and investing for the second or third or fourth time in new companies.

“Having said that, it would be terrific if we could get software companies of the scale we have on the food side.”

While it is still difficult to understand all the various facets of Enterprise Ireland, one thing that is clear is that the issues of getting finance for companies and getting into developing markets will be critical for Sinnamon.