UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
HONORARY CONFERRING
Friday, 6 December 2013 at 3 p.m.
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR CIARÁN Ó hÓGARTAIGH, Principal, UCD College of Business and Law, University College Dublin on 6 December 2013, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa on Ciarán Murray
President, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen
It is my pleasure and privilege to present Ciarán Murray, CEO if ICON plc, for the award of an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
When we honour people in this way, we also signal what we value as a University. And particularly fitting at graduation, there are also lessons to be learned from a life lived.
Ciarán Murray is a Bachelor of Commerce graduate from UCD and a qualified Chartered Accountant, having trained with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in Dublin. He grew up in Belfast and spent the final years of his secondary education in Dublin. Like many of his contemporaries and indeed our current graduates, his career has been characterised by a sense of internationalisation which also increasingly characterises this University’s sense of itself. Having worked with PriceWaterhouse in Milan, Kraft Foods in the UK, Northern Food and Novell Kodak, he joined ICON as Chief Financial Officer in 2005, serving in that capacity until his appointment as Chief Executive. ICON plc, one of the world’s largest clinical research organisations, headquartered in Sandyford. At 31 December 2012, ICON had over 9,000 employees, in 82 locations in 40 countries. During the year ended 31 December 2011, the Group derived approximately 42.3%, 45.8% and 11.9% of its net revenue in the United States, Europe and Rest of World respectively.
Drawing first on this as a value we cherish, Ciarán is emblematic of a new generation of business leadership in Ireland: while ICON is a truly global company which derives more than half of its revenues outside Europe, he sees the ‘soul’ of the company as in Ireland.
He is a careful and thoughtful leader of his organisation with a keen focus on the development of his people and of Ireland.
He has also led ICON’s generous and substantive support the UCD Science Centre and, as part of the UCD School of Business Development Campaign, a Chair in Business Analytics. He has also been a catalyst of ICON’s engagement in Executive Education at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and the graduate certificate in clinical research with the UCD School of Medicine & Medical Science.
In 2013, ICON received "Partnership Pioneers of the Year" award in recognition of its (opens in a new window)strategic partnership with Pfizer and PAREXEL. This award recognises companies engaged in a partnership that moves beyond the traditional transactional model to a more strategic approach that brings innovation to the drug development process. This focus on interdisciplinarity while protecting and respecting the strength of our core disciplines is also something we value as University. The awarding of an honorary degree to Ciarán Murray therefore signals the University’s appreciation of the interdisciplinary work between the business and medical fields – and between the University and business – which have been the hallmark of his work as CEO of ICON.
Since becoming CEO of ICON, Ciarán has led real growth in the business with net revenue for the year ended 31 December 2012 increasing by $169.3 million, or 17.9%, from US$946 million to US$1,115 million. He has also made a significant contribution to employment growth in his business: in 2012, the average number of employees grew by nearly 1,000 people worldwide, from 8,092 to 9,088.
This success is a product of hard work. As anyone who knows him will testify, Ciarán Murray works hard. This is often an aspect of leadership which is undervalued and under-estimated in public commentary and in the management literature. While public discussion – some of its justified, some of it not – often tends to focus on the rewards of leadership, we don’t pay enough attention to the toll and role of leadership. For the graduates here today, our honouring of Ciarán Murray is a signal that hard work and commitment matters. Success sometimes requires luck but is rarely if ever achieved without hard work.
Finally, committing to something other than yourself is a hallmark of sustained leadership and of sustainable success. Ciarán is characterised by hard work, a commitment to quality and an innate modesty and lack of hubris. When you talk to him about his role as CEO, you quickly realise that he is not about him. His concern is for the development of his organisation and for the people around him. He wears his achievements lightly. He knows the fragility of success and that there are good days and bad days and that one should treat them all the same.
For these reasons, for his international perspective, for his hard work and commitment to causes and people other than himself and for never losing the run of himself, Ciarán Murray is a very appropriate role model for our graduates in the world in which we live now.
Praehonorabilis Pro-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.