That Great Business Show

E15. This is a business story like no other. Conor McEnroy headed to the City of London in the wake of his failed oil & gas newsletter. He was offered three jobs and thought he was cock of the walk - until he found out that his fellow interns were on double his salary. Lesson learnt.

A chance phone call by Conor to an old contact in the oil business saw his Swiss employers earning a massive £2m fee for raising funds for the oil company. Conor was on his way - a way that brought him to Italy, and then to Latin America where he was to fix broken oil companies initially, and then broken banks - a scalpel is a scalpel no matter what the business, after all. Not everyone appreciated his presence. There was a bomb at his hotel. There was the kidnapping - Conor describes what goes through your mind when your on a country road with a gun pointed at your back. And there were the minders, armed to the teeth, who would join Conor for his walks on the beach.

Some time later he got a phone call from an old pal who offered to sell him an ailing Paraguayan bank. Eventually Conor did buy it, and has built it from tenth spot to the fourth spot in bank size.

Ireland's honorary consul in Paraguay (that's another job he has) doesn't hold back on what he would do with the Irish banks and their boards were he in charge (You're fired!), he explains why he wouldn't allow banks to sell of their bad loans and he says that young Irish people should take a serious look at the opportunities that Paraguay offers them. He got rugby legend and co-host Jamie Heaslip so excited with the prospects about buying a coffee plantation that they exchanged phone numbers before he left. Who knows, will we see a Blend #8 coffee on our shelves soon?

Listen. It's not like any other business story, because at That Great Business Show we do business differently.

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E14 A special edition featuring Tony Smurfit CEO of the eponymous Smurfit Kappa group.Tony talks candidly about why retiring is not an option, his relationship with his father Michael Smurfit, keeping in touch with 46,000 employees across 35 countries during Covid times, what his plans are for the recent €660m Smurfit Kappa fundraising, gambling (badly!) on American football games, his thoughts on NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes, his admiration of Dermot Smurfit. He also says he never considered being a male model (we ask all the important questions on That Great Business Show!)

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E13 Wexford Home Preserves, world's best jam maker, hand made in Wexford, with ambitions to sell in Harrods (18') BeeKon, already outselling craft beers, seeking a listing in O'Brien Wines (34') Sitting up straight. Yes, Cork based Alcass has made a business out of that. (50') Going to the doctor? Not any more. Wellola has a cure for that.

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E. 12 Tony Harbison, boss of Wicklow based company Asistec on semen and shifting vaccines at minus 70C., Yvonne Caplice, Business Director of creative agency TBWA, on making world winning Supervalu Christmas ad, manufacturing PPE clothing during a pandemic is a great business for Happy Threads co-founder Daniel Plewman, save 30% plus on energy costs for free using clever Vivid Edge tech and finance, co-founder Tracy O'Rourke explains. Oh, and what went through Jamie Heaslip's mind when scoring World Rugby's 'Try of the Decade'.

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E11 Finding a niche. Like souvenir coffee and cold brew coffee. Done Deal gets into car finance. €250k prize for AI start-ups. A world beating bin company you've never heard of. And why lack of daylight means Mayo will win Sam. Ireland's best business podcast.

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E.10 Ann Morgan CEO of builders' merchants on door hanging and Brexit, Sean Hassett of Tralee based WAZP on printing cars, Tara Lane of Centrepiece Rosettes on working from 6am - 11pm, Aidan Mehigan and family heads to US to sell Natterjack Whiskey and Evan Quaid, 16-years-old entrepreneur with his product stocked in 145 Aldi stores nationwide.

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Eps. 9 - Dónal Byrne of Big Red Barn - shipping homes from Mayo to USA - (21') Emma Harte, TellUsFirst' reveals 'Mystery Shopper' secrets - (42') Daithí de Buitléir, ParkOffice.io on the future of commuting - (59') Jennifer O'Brien of Plantruption on seaweed burgers

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Eps.8 Lismore Foods on great biscuits, expansion and visuals for food. (21 minutes) Shift workers software platform GetTheShifts raising €600k, (37 minutes) BigRedCloud asks accountants to wear the Big Green Jersey, (53 minutes) Psychology professor Jo Burke's proven practical tips on de-stressing

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E7 Ireland's best business podcast

04.30" Moby bikes plans to make Waterford, Cork...and the world, electric

22.30" Coole Swan. It's official. The Meath made liqueur is now the world's best cream liqueur.

43.30" NPro. Taking 75% of the tackle impact away from 8 million rugby players.

59" Oogo. Just when childcare issues were about to consume you, along comes this Irish startup.

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E6 Coming up on this week's That Great Business Show, Episode 6

(From 4.30")

John Paul Prior, co-founder of ‘vertical farming’ startup www.Farmony.ie explains how the future of farming is up in the air, literally. He sees a world where we will be farming many of our greens and salads in disused commercial properties, in-store in supermarkets or even in your living room. Why? Because technology allows it and, for sensible sustainability reasons, we can’t continue to ship our lettuce or herbs from across the globe. Jamie Heaslip also explains the difference between a land owner and a farmer. He says the Kearney brothers, (Dave and Rob) come under one heading and Sean O’Brien comes under the other. Let’s see what comes of that.

(From 20')

There’s a nationwide opportunity in the in-situ health scanning business according to Mary Jones of www.mobilemedicaldiagnostics.ie We hear, incredibly, that she has the only mobile scanning business that brings medical scanning to patients in nursing and care homes. This avoids having to bring patients on long, complicated and ultimately disturbing trips to hospitals for scans, especially as we learn that 85% of those scans are ’outruled’ – i.e. good news, nothing broken. A true entrepreneur Mary even put her engagement ring on the line to raise collateral to lease her first scanner. She’s serious about the business.

(From 37')

How do you do business with giant corporations without being sucked in, chewed up and spat out – leaving without the business idea or solution that you brought to them? Veteran entrepreneur John Colgan of www.solgari.com explains how his small comms software company has successfully partnered with Microsoft, brining the Solgari solutions to the world, making both Microsoft and Solgari very happy indeed. John says that large corporations are agnostic to where solutions come from, so long as they’re good. He repeats the That Great Business Show mantra – it’s #StrictlyBusiness. Being a great guest John leaves us with some great tips.

(From 53')

If we could turn every one Euro in your pocket into six Euro, you’d love us. Well that’s the minimum that entrepreneur Sohini De claims that her business www.Empeal.com can deliver. She doesn’t like the word ‘wellness’ which she says is totally abused at this stage. Instead, what her business does do is use the appliance of science to turn employee health into a game. The more the employees participate, the more it benefits them. The healthier your staff, the happier the staff and the lower your staff turnover. This is one area where co-host Jamie Heaslip is seriously well versed. Hear what his verdict on the business is.

As a subscriber, if you have a great business or know of an exceptional one, the type of brilliantly clever businesses we love to feature on Ireland’s best business podcast, please send us details at [email protected] You'll find full details of our requirements on our website www.ThatGreatBusinessShow.com

With our growing worldwide audience, our connections with www.iibn.com as well as with the @IrelandCTBiz on Twitter you’ll be doing those businesses a big favour.

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