Irish at Stanford learn how to play big

Chief executives of 31 Irish technology and software companies have just returned from a week in Silicon Valley's in-house university, Stanford - the alma mater of a who's who of the technology world including Intel chairman Craig Barrett, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

The Irish invasion was part of a joint Enterprise Ireland/Irish Software Association initiative called Leadership4Growth. Developed in association with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the programme aims to give the participating chief executives the skills needed to make their companies big players in international markets.

The participating companies provide a good cross-section of the sector ranging from nimble start-ups to Nasdaq-quoted payments company Trintech.

Richard Bryce, chief executive of Mapflow, compares the 12-month programme to an intensive MBA course but with a high level of practical work and content tailored to the software industry. The three one-week Stanford sessions - held last October, last week and next May - cover strategy, leadership and execution respectively.

In between, the executives have regular sessions with business mentors of the calibre of former Iona Technologies boss Chris Horn and Ron Bolger, former managing partner of KPMG.

"If it was just three intensive study weeks with nothing in between, you wouldn't implement it when you get back to running your business," says Mr Bryce. "But it's 12 months of continuous learning and implementation."

At last week's Stanford session executives from successful US companies such as Palm, Google, Veritas and eBay presented case studies on their companies development. "A lot of the talent pool in those companies comes from Stanford, so we heard from senior executives and one chief executive who were only too happy to give back their time," says Cyril McGuire, chairman and chief executive of Trintech. "A lot of them also have Ireland as their international or European headquarters."

Both Mr Bryce and Mr McGuire point out that the process of becoming an international company is quite different for US and Irish companies. With a large home market, American start-ups generally have achieved scale by the time they move overseas. "Irish firms have to globalise their operations at a much earlier stage and that in itself is a challenge," says Mr McGuire. "It requires careful planning, strategic thinking and world class execution."

While Mr Bryce concedes that having a vibrant market on their doorstep gives US companies an advantage, he believes the Irish have much to learn from Silicon Valley executives. "We need to be saying we want to build multi-hundred million or billion-dollar organisations rather than being content with $10 or $20 million," he says. "That's the mindset we are trying to achieve and the programme gives you the confidence and tools to make that happen."