UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
HONORARY CONFERRING
Tuesday, 3 September 2013 at 2.30 p.m.
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR DAMIEN MCLOUGHLIN, UCD School of Business, University College Dublin on 3 September 2013, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa on Aidan Cotter
President, Honoured guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I would like to begin today as our honoree always does, with a quote, on this occasion from our recently lost literary giant, Seamus Heaney.
History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Ireland today is presented with a unique opportunity. Our most important indigenous industry, food and agriculture, has a world-wide reputation for the production of safe food. Indeed, the recent scare in meat and Ireland’s rapid and comprehensive response has only served to enhance that reputation. Allied to this we have a 30% increase in the global population over the next 25 years, a tidal wave, with no new land coming on stream and water in short supply in many of the places of greatest population increase. This new population is challenged by a lack of safe food and their future is threatened by the lack of a system of sustainable food production.
Hope and history, as Heaney describes it, are rhyming.
In Ireland we have a food industry that has a coherent, consistent and complete vision of its future and role in meeting this historical opportunity. We have a food industry which is systemically safe and which has committed itself to sustainable production.
Today’s honoree is one of the architects of that model, a model that which encourages us to hope for the future of Ireland and the role which its food industry can play in national recovery and international well-being.
Aidan Cotter, CEO of Bord Bia has created a global market presence and reputation for Irish food industry as a high quality and safe producer. This has already enabled it to increase its exports by 28% between 2010 and 2012.
It will be no surprise given these achievements that Aidan Cotter has graduated from UCD before. He managed to get away from us to secure an MBA at Cranfield but some wider experience never does anyone any harm. He worked for the Irish food industry in Ireland, the UK and Germany before being appointed CEO of Bord Bia in 2004.
FOOD INDUSTRY CHAMPION
During the years of the Celtic Tiger many outside the industry ignored the food sector, preferring the bright lights of financial services and the glamour of property to the honesty and integrity of those who meet our most basic needs. Indeed, some even chose to refer to it as a sunset industry.
When our economy imploded after 2007 Ireland needed a new champion industry. Public servants and industry leaders saw the opportunity for the food industry to play that role once again. Aidan Cotter was one of those who began the process of persuasion, which continues today, that the food industry isn’t a sunset industry but is very much a sunrise
Strategically focussed leader
I was told recently by a colleague that the food industry was the only industry in Ireland that had a plan. I was quite shocked by this, in a small country like ours shouldn’t every industry have a plan?
The Irish food industry’s ambitions and future is described in Food Harvest 2020, but its business plan is the Pathways for Growth project initiated by Aidan Cotter. Aidan had the view that a realistic but ambitious action plan was needed for the Irish food industry to work on together. To develop this plan he wanted the best minds in global agribusiness to work on it.
So he called me and asked did I know anyone who could help.
He eventually engaged two of the worlds leading thinkers on agribusiness: HBS professors David Bell and Mary Shelman, one of whom, Mary Shelman has joined us to honour Aidan today. And Pathways to Growth was
You take a huge risk when you ask HBS to tell you what the problem is and to challenge you with a business plan. Aidan was willing to take that risk.
Our colleagues did not hold their punches in what they told Bord Bia:
- Ireland needs coopetition – collaboration amongst competitors – to overcome the problems of scale.
- The Irish food industry needs to create a climate of entrepreneurship needed to build the SME’s and large firms for the future;
- Ireland needs an educational programme to attract the best young people into the food industry and improve the quality of management capital in the industry.
- Most of all, Ireland needs an umbrella brand that it can use to sell the Irish food industry globally. And with a swipe of the hand that only a Professor can muster they say “and don't bother with the brand unless you can prove it to anyone visiting Ireland” In a strategy they called “come see us”
Investor in innovation and Strategist in the truest sense of the word
Business Schools generally try to teach people how to innovators and strategists. Indeed, I am confident that the if you asked the 200 outstanding graduates in the Hall today their elevator pitches would use the words innovation and strategy at least once or twice.
Well to our graduates, perhaps for the last time, let me provide you with a case study about how innovation Aidan Cotter style works.
- Coopetition: Aidan has led a major programme of cooperation amongst competitors intended to overcome the barriers to scale that face most Irish firms. To date more than 200 Irish food firms have participated in projects in this area. Aidan has also built a series of coalitions within the food industry with Teagasc in the development of a national sustainability programme, with the Dairy industry in the same area, with UCD in the area of education and with the leaders of the largest Irish food companies in support of the Pathways initiative.
-Education: UCD and Bord Bia recently we launched the fifth offering of the Bord Bia Marketing Fellowship programme which to date has seen more than 120 professionals complete an MSc in Marketing Practice at UCD Smurfit School and work on more than 500 projects to increase the sales of Irish food in international markets. We estimate that over €30m in sales has been generated directly as a result of the programme. In November we launch the fourth offering of the Strategic Growth Programme, an executive programme for mid career food industry executives intended to boost the ability of Irish food firms to execute on the strategic plans they have in place.
- Entrepreneurship: In 2012 Bord Bia launched its Food Works initiative intended to promote entrepreneurship in the food industry. Conducting workshops around the country, selecting and promoting scalable business propositions for the next generation of Goodfella’s Pizza or Cuisine De France
- Brand: I have saved the most exciting until last. If you were watching the Late Late Show before the summer break, you may have seen the commercial for a new Irish brand called Origin Green featuring Saoirse Ronan. This brand will represent the Irish food industry as the most sustainable food producer in the world. I have no doubt that this initiative will a significant driver of growth to the Irish food and drinks industry over the next 25 years. As of this morning 276 Irish food companies have agreed to participate, representing 65% of Irish food and drink exports. On Monday next 10 Origin Green Ambassadors begin an MSc in Business Sustainability at UCD Smurfit School. As part of their studies they will travel to meet food buyers around the world and explain to them how the Irish food industry has signed up to be the most sustainable food producer in the world. These very special people are Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs and sustainability specialists. All working for Ireland, all working for the Irish food and drink sector. All Aidan Cotter’s idea.
What I haven’t mentioned so far and which you may not know unless you work in the Food Industry is when the Pathways report was prepared – 2010. Four major initiatives, four years, and to my knowledge one big one in the pipeline for 2014 with another one in the wind.
Not bad for the Irish public service. Not bad for the Irish food industry. Not bad for a UCD graduate, a committed innovator and a master strategist. All in a day’s work for Aidan Cotter.
In conclusion I turn again to the words of Heaney and his poem Scaffolding when he writes
“Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.
Aidan, UCD, your Alma Mater, honours you today for the work you have done in erecting a scaffolding for the Irish food industry over the past 30 years. For allowing the Irish food industry to build a wall that I am confident will serve us well over the next 30 years.
Good luck. God’s speed. Keep it up – we need you. But most of all – thank you.
Praehonorabilis Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus utroque Jure, tam Civili quam Canonico; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.