Skip to main content

A panel discussion on how to start, scale and succeed in business

Learn from some of Irish Retails leading lights in one of the most sought after venues in Ireland, the historic House of Lords on Thursday 8th October.

Retail Excellence and Bank of Ireland, College Green, have teamed up and assembled a unique panel of some of Ireland’s biggest names in Retail, to discuss and share their insights on how to start and scale a successful retail business.

This event will be of interest to entrepreneurs, start-ups, early stage companies and SME businesses who are on track for growth and want to hear inspirational stories and advice on how to start, scale and achieve success in business. There will be a chance to ask the panelists questions, and the event will draw to a close with refreshments and a chance to network.

The panel line-up includes:

Owen Clifford, Head of Retail Convenience at Bank of Ireland will chair the discussion, and the Q&A session.

Format 

6:00 pm                     Registration

6:15 pm                     Panel Discussion

7:00 pm                     Networking & Refreshments

8:00 pm                     Finish

This event is part of the Start-Up Gathering 2015 programme of events. Find out about other events taken place across Ireland from the 5th-10th October at www.startupgathering.ie.

Register here!

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS). Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software. Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book. At that time, the company was losing money. The company became profitable within two months, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One. Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)