The CeoForum is being held in Dublin Castle today, and the theme of today's gathering is "Internationalisation".
The event will see over 300 of the country's leading CEOs listen to key note addresses from the likes of Michael O'Leary of Ryanair and Ding's Mark Roden, as well as other speakers and panellists including the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton. The main focus of the CEO Forum is to create an opportunity for chief executives to discuss what they perceive to be the major issues facing their companies and Irish businesses.
Conor McCarthy, executive chairman of Dublin Aerospace, says that there is really no difference between internationalisation and globalisation and the same approach is needed to discover how to link with customers across the world whether they live in Australia or China, or next door in Dublin. Mr McCarthy says a business needs to find out what their customers' needs are, how to make their business competitive and deliver what customers want.
As an aircraft maintenance business, Mr McCarthy says he relies hugely on very highly skilled engineers and Dublin Aerospace has found in the last few years that the best avenue for producing this particular talent is the apprenticeship scheme, adding that the company is a "huge fan" of apprenticeships. He said he would encourage the Government to redouble their efforts in relation to the development of apprenticeships. He points out that there are about 400 apprenticeship schemes in Germany, for everything from bank managers to chemists, while in Ireland they are confined to the trade sector. He describes such schemes as "superb vocational training grounds" for any individual who wish to take on that career.
Apprenticeships should be developed within the education system as opposed to them being employer-sponorsed and Mr McCarthy says that way we can develop trainees, which will lead to apprenticeships and which will then lead to full qualifications. The scheme has worked "extremely well" for Dublin Aerospace, he says, adding that there are about 40 people in various stages of training at the company as either engineers or aircraft mechanics.
Anne Heraty, CEO of CPL Resources, says that over one million people are in full time education in Ireland, with a 20% increase in the number of students going into STEM subjects - a move which she describes as encouraging. Ms Heraty says how to find, hire, engage and retain top talent is crucial for any CEO in Ireland at the moment. She says companies can source the talent they need, adding that it is key to remember that we are operating in a global labour market. She said she would prefer to be recruiting talent here in Ireland, rather than in Silicon Valley or New York, or China.
On the country's educational system, Ms Heraty says it needs to be opened up at an earlier stage to encourage children into STEM subjects and to make those subjects interesting for them. She also feels that languages are very important as companies are now working on a global stage.
