June 2016 Building Ireland’s Next Billion Dollar Company is the Aim of NUI Galway’s Entrepreneurship Programme

Scaling: building a business through sustainable growth in the West of Ireland is the focus of an entrepreneurship course in NUI Galway aimed at, and structured to, facilitate entrepreneurs

Robert (Bob) Rosenberg of the Chicago Booth School of Business and the Polsky Centre for Innovation, ranked number 4 in innovation in the US, will spend the week of June 11-17 working with Irish companies working on ‘Scaling a Business’ in NUI Galway. There will be an additional event, which is open to the public and hosted in the PorterShed in Galway city on Wednesday, 15 June in association with StartUp Galway.
 
The newly established Atlantic Centre for Entrepreneurship & Executive Development aims to develop a sustainable partnership between proven entrepreneurs and experienced academics and bring globally-leading talent to Galway and the West of Ireland to offer the necessary skills to sustain and grow indigenous industry. This first course, ‘Scaling a Business’ and subsequent courses will be held at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics at NUI Galway.

Dr Tom Acton, Head of the School of Business & Economics at NUI Galway and Caitríona Lynch, entrepreneur and adjunct Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at NUI Galway have been working together to put in place a set of programmes in entrepreneurship. These are not training courses, not one-off workshops, but a structure for university accredited qualifications. Tom and Caitríona see it as the future of coalface education, a public-private partnership leveraging expertise from the University and others, and the entrepreneurship community.

Describing how she convinced Bob Rosenberg to come to Galway, Caitríona Lynch said: “I went to Chicago with the aim of knocking on Bob’s door and asking him to come to Ireland. Building the next billion dollar company in Ireland depends on having the skill set to scale a business from a start-up and our focus is putting the structure and the skills in place now, to allow that to happen. It’s a privilege to work with someone of the calibre and expertise of Bob, and to draw from the vast skills and experience that he brings.”

It’s a visit Bob Rosenberg is looking forward to and said: “The Atlantic Centre is a brave experiment, an effort to transform promising startups into economic drivers for the region and the country. Tom and Caitríona deserve full marks for their ambition and vision. The Atlantic Centre is a necessary and brave step, an effort to transform promising ideas and companies into economic drivers for the region and the country.”

A chartered accountant and entrepreneur, Caitríona Lynch sold her business C Infinity a number of years ago and is now working with entrepreneurs, start-ups and early stage companies at the Atlantic Centre for Entrepreneurship & Executive Development. It’s ‘Scaling a Business’ is the first of many courses.

According to Tom Acton, “The course targets entrepreneurs beyond the startup stage, persons in a company seeking to grow a team or product, service, or someone who wants to learn more about expanding an existing business in which they play a role. Facilitating growth is the key focus.”

The June ‘Scaling a Business’ course is full, but it is just the first. Dr Acton encourages anyone who is interested in future courses to register their interest and added, “This is a first step towards building a network across the region to move ideas from the entrepreneur’s mind to the global market, and to that end we will be hosting a number of additional events during the week for participants. One of these will be open to the public and hosted in the PorterShed in Galway city on Wednesday, 15 June in association with StartUp Galway.”

This course has been made possible with the generous support of Deloitte and Bank of Ireland.

To register and for further information visit www.aceatlantic.com and follow @atlanticcentre

ENDS