Sir, – The attention given in your pages by Tom Lyons to the autobiography of Michael Smurfit is a welcome antidote to bankruptcy proceedings involving other business figures and the entitlement culture of some of the leaders of major charitable organisations.
It provides a companion piece to the biographies written about two other men also born in 1936: Tony Ryan: Ireland's Aviator and The Player: The Life of Tony O'Reilly .
According to a law framed by US economist Carl J Schramm: “The single most important contributor to a nation’s economic growth is the number of startups that grow to a billion dollars in revenue within 20 years.”
For all our talk about how entrepreneurial we are, beyond a handful of companies such as Ryanair, Fyffes, CRH, Elan, Kerry Group, Greencore, Iona, Glen Dimplex, Paddy Power and Penneys/Primark indigenous Irish companies do not get big.
Ireland misses out in two ways. First in job creation and second in the training of future management talent. While Enterprise Ireland seems to have got Richard Bruton on message about the need for more startups, the real need is for scaleups. To quote The Social Network : "A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? A billion dollars."
Scaling up is considerably harder than starting up. Smurfit, Ryan and O’Reilly are three men whose acumen is studied by leading business schools across the world. In an era where those with an ability to keep their noses out of trouble seem to expect to be rewarded just as much as those who have achieved superior performance, I welcome the attention given to the achievements of Michael Smurfit and look forward to reading his book. Yours, etc,
JOE HASLAM,
Executive Director,
Owners & Entrepreneurs
Management Program,
IE Business School,
Madrid