Ireland must shake off scandals to be boardroom standards leader, say online trainers

An Enterprise Ireland-backed company aims to “democratise” corporate governance training for board directors at home and abroad through online courses illustrated with examples of governance scandals, including the one that happened under John Delaney’s watch at the Football Association of Ireland.

Irish corporate governance standards have been prominent in the news recently with high profile cases such as the bond-trading scandal that recently rocked Davy stockbrokers and led to a €4.1 million fine.

Questions over board oversight also featured in coverage of the controversial decision by the chief executive of Beacon hospital to vaccinate teachers at the private school attended by his children. The decision led to the State taking the hospital from its list of vaccination sites.

Despite ructions in the media at home over governance standards, the founders of the Corporate Governance Institute – governance consultant David Duffy and online education entrepreneur Anthony Quigley – believe Ireland can become an example for company directors abroad on how to improve standards.

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The institute, which was founded a year ago with backing from the State’s export agency, is targeting further expansion internationally in 2021. Foreign-based company directors currently make up one in four of the participants on its online diploma. The institute is aiming to eventually increase this to more than 80 per cent.

Governance training for directors in Ireland is currently dominated by traditional offline providers, such as the Irish Management Institute. Mr Duffy and Mr Quigley, who previously founded e-learning companies the Code Institute and the Digital Marketing Institute, have built an online platform that uses web tutorials and business software such as Slack.

Foothold

“It is a billion euro market worldwide and we want to gain a foothold,” said Mr Duffy, who said the institute is pitching its offering to “commonwealth” countries that have similar legal systems to Ireland.

Mr Quigley said Ireland should aim to shake off the reputational damage of scandals such as Anglo Irish Bank and be an international “beacon” for boardroom standards, “This country is among the best in the world for foreign direct investment. We should be the same for corporate governance.”

Mr Duffy, a veteran consultant on director and governance training, was introduced to Mr Quigley last year, and they “virtually” built their online education venture during the pandemic – the first time they actually physically met was when The Irish Times came to take their photograph this week.

The Corporate Governance Institute offers a 12-week online course covering issues relevant to boardroom standards, relevant codes and ethical decision-making for directors. It costs €3,350, with directors logging in for 36 contact hours of evening lectures and tutorials.

In addition to the FAI scandal, which led to a complete overhaul of the organisation that remains ongoing, directors also study examples at foreign organisations such as the accounting scandal that caused the collapse of Carillion, and a fraud at US bank Wells Fargo.

“As well as codes you can teach people the fundamentals of decision-making. We are trying to raise the level of decision-making in boardrooms so that there are less Beacons, less Davys,” said Mr Quigley.

“Take the Beacon as an example. By all accounts the chief executive is loved by his staff, but he made a critically bad decision. But what did the board do afterwards?”

Mr Duffy said a lot of corporate governance scandals are down to problems with a company’s culture. “It’s all about the culture of the organisation, although I’m sure that issue isn’t unique to Davy. But directors need ethical training and they need to focus on culture. Then they still have your obligations under the law.”

Often, he said, corporate governance problems are also associated with boardroom “groupthink”, which he associated with Anglo Irish Bank.

Formal codes

Mr Quigley said the institute has already trained “all sorts of companies” in boardroom standards, and he name-checked law firm Arthur Cox and accounting firm BDO. While corporate governance training is usually associated with major companies such as listed businesses that must adhere to formal codes, Mr Quigley says the institute is also targeting directors of SMEs that are currently not bound by a code.

Company filings for Goved Online, which owns the Corporate Governance Institute, show that it recently raised €250,000 from a series of private investors, including former PWC partner Bob Semple and well-known funds director Peter Blessing. It also appears to be backed by tech investors Will Prendergast and Shay Garvey, from Frontline Ventures.

It currently employs 10 facilitators to deliver its online training modules, but will double this number by the end of the year, Mr Duffy says. The company will train 400 directors this year. With a focus on international expansion, Mr Quigley hopes the business will grow quickly. He says the pandemic has also accelerated demand for online learning.

“Traditional providers of corporate training are in catch-up mode. There is a whole online world out there that is way beyond Zoom.”