If you can keep your head when all about you are losing their’s…” – It’s the opening line of the Rudyard Kipling poem that Irish Country Living finds ourselves reciting as we turn the key in the car ignition (and brace for the almost inevitable Brexit update on the 1pm news) on the drive back to the office after our interview with Tara McCarthy.

Calm. Collected. Capable. All adjectives that seem to describe the new Bord Bia CEO charged with leading the Irish food board through possibly its biggest challenge yet.

“The worst thing you can do is get panicked and immobile in a crisis,” she told us a short time earlier.

“The key piece to it is to follow process so that you can actually make sure you’re thinking all the way through and that you’re not missing an opportunity. I was saying this to someone yesterday that my biggest fear on Brexit is in two years’ time we’ll say: ‘We should have…’

“That’s what would keep me awake at night. Are we thinking of all of the things we should be doing today that will prepare us for whatever the eventuality is in two years’ time and that’s what keeps it exciting – but that’s what keeps it pressurised and focused as well.”

WEST CORK

And while she is less than six months in her new role – the first female to hold the position – it’s worth remembering that Tara has “grown up”, as it were, in Bord Bia, to the backdrop of BSE, foot and mouth and the economic crash of 2008.

But let’s take it back a bit first.

One of five children brought up near Clonakilty, Tara’s father Kevin was principal of the local community college, while her mother Winnie was a homemaker and the “driving force behind everything”.

Their influence is clear. After all, having attended her father’s school rather than the local convent (“there was probably about 90 in my year and about seven girls”) working in a male-dominated industry like agriculture was never going to faze Tara, while her mother’s passion for cooking infused the whole family with a love of good food.

“The only day it wasn’t a great day to eat with her was Good Friday because that was meant to be penance,” she laughs.

After school, Tara studied commerce in Galway, followed by a master’s in marketing, with the intention of going into teaching. But a year in a secondary school, followed by a stint as a lecturing assistant, confirmed her passions lay elsewhere.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Though she probably didn’t expect to find her calling in a meat factory after being accepted on the European Orientation Programme, sponsored by CBF (the predecessor to Bord Bia), where she spent three months working everywhere from the boning hall to the freezer.

“As a baptism into the industry, they spared nothing on me,” she recalls, with certain relish.

The next part of the programme saw her dispatched to Germany for a crash course in the language – “I didn’t speak a word”– before a six-month stint in Dusseldorf, where she was involved in everything from doing beef tastings in supermarkets to trade shows with her newly acquired – albeit specific – linguistic skills.

“I could talk to you about BSE and the grass-based extensive system of Irish agriculture, but if somebody asked you what did you think of U2, I didn’t have the vocab for that,” she jokes.

Tara spent five years in Germany, before transferring to France, where she became head of the Paris office for Bord Bia, and believes both experiences were key to earning her stripes.

“The BSE crisis happened when I was in Germany, the foot and mouth crisis happened when I was in Paris – so you were learning all of the time,” she explains.

DREAM JOB

And it was these skills she brought with her on her return to Ireland. Initially taking up the role as head of the consumer food team before her appointment as food and beverage director, which coincided with another crisis with the recession, leading to the introduction of key programmes – such as Origin Green, Food Works and Thinking House – to support the sector.

In 2015, she was appointed as CEO of BIM but, 18 months in, the top job in Bord Bia was advertised in advance of Aidan Cotter’s retirement.

“I saw it in the paper and I’m going: ‘That’s the dream job,’” she recalls of her decision to apply.

“I’ve a hunger for new and a hunger to keep being challenged and keep being excited about things. When I saw that role, that was my dream job – written there in black and white in front of me, looking at every single line.”

After a rigorous interview process, Tara was announced as CEO in October, starting on 26 January. And while she is the first female in the role, she feels another factor is more significant.

“The piece that I find really meaningful is that I came through the system in Bord Bia,” she states.

“So that when we welcome new students – be they EOPs or young people putting time in here – what I want to show them is that if you work hard in Bord Bia, we will promote you right to the top. That there’s a career path in food, that we will invest in you to get to the places that we want – more so than the male-female piece.”

BREXIT

Since then, she’s hit the ground running. In the first 50 days alone, she had approximately 250 meetings.

Of course, you can’t avoid the “B” word, and Tara explains that her approach is data-driven so that Bord Bia can best support each sector in the tumultuous months ahead.

“There’s so much emotion going on here. How can you make sure that you’re dealing in the facts and figures and not spin? So we’re trawling for data at the moment from every single sector,” she says, explaining that, at the same time, the organisation is also looking inwards to make sure they are suited and booted for Brexit.

One of their most recent initiatives was the “Brexit Barometer”, where they conducted in-depth assessments with 134 companies to understand the specific challenges they each face. They are also working closely with UK retailers to “give Tesco or Asda or Sainsbury’s every reason to be committed to Irish food”. This was done through initiatives like research illustrating the high regard in which the British consumer holds Irish produce, while also exploring new markets.

“We were in Dubai in Spinneys’ supermarket looking at Monaghan mushrooms with added vitamin D,” says Tara of one recent trade mission.

“You’re in a country where they’re not lacking sunshine and they lack vitamin D because they’re covered up all the time and everyone’s covered, no one goes out at all. And it’s kind of fascinating to see Ireland exporting vitamin D to Dubai in mushrooms – one of the products that’s most vulnerable – as a premium product.”

Other initiatives include marketing grants to help companies affected by Brexit, a new market placement programme where Bord Bia staff work for key customers of Irish exporters on internships, and increased participation in international trade fairs (one every fortnight in 2017). All the while preparing for every possible outcome “from a doomsday scenario to a benign scenario and everything in between”.

OPPORTUNITIES OVERSEAS

She is “heartened”, however, by the attention Brexit is being given at Government level and believes that Ireland’s work on sustainability – “the biggest issue in the global food industry”– through Origin Green, gives us a unique selling point internationally.

“Ok, it is true that 37% of our exports do go to the UK and, in some ways, it’s logical that they do go to the UK because they’re our closest market – it’s one of the most high-paying markets, it’s a very sophisticated market, our taste profiles are the same.

“But, at the same time, over 60% of our products go internationally, go all over the world – 32% goes to the continent, 31% goes to the international markets. There are huge opportunities there.

“If you look at the growth that we’ve experienced since 2010 in the food industry, 50% of that growth has already been coming from international markets, so it’s not as if we’ve been blind to that. We’re absolutely refocusing to put even more energy behind it, but this takes time.

“Now, are there opportunities? Absolutely. If you look at the demographic profile, it’s moving towards the east. If you’re looking at where’s the middle class going to come from, it’s going towards the east. So how can we make sure that Ireland is positioned properly in those markets?

“So, what we have been doing is really sophisticated work on telling that story.”

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Is it impossible to switch off, especially as every day – every bulletin – seems to bring another challenge?

Tara admits that reminders of work are everywhere – on the radio, her phone, even in the supermarket – but “when you’re in your dream job, you don’t count the nine to five anyway”.

She credits the support of her French husband Didier, who she actually met when she returned to Paris for a friend’s house warming after moving back to Ireland.

“A Ryanair-sponsored commute for about 18 months,” she quips of their courtship, before Didier, who was working for Accenture, relocated.

The couple – who speak mostly French – have three children, James (10), Emily (eight) and Mark (six), with Didier at home full-time.

“That allows me huge freedom from the perspective of if I get caught for a dinner here or if I have to do extra any time, that balance is full support from home,” says Tara who, as well as steering Bord Bia, recently had the excitement – or stress? – of a First Communion.

“I’d say it’s easier to organise Marketplace,” she smiles wryly.

Outside of work, she sits on the board of Blossom Ireland, which provides therapy-led summer camps, after-school activities and other social opportunities for children with intellectual disabilities.

“It’s just so humbling,” she says of the charity that’s currently on a fundraising drive.

A self-confessed current affairs junkie – particularly in relation to the recent French elections – her most recent TV switch-on was the American political drama Madam Secretary. Reading-wise, you’re more likely to find her perusing a McKinsey report rather than the latest bestseller, and she has Google updates set in relation to female business leaders like Sheryl Sandberg.

A gentle knock on the door from Tara’s PA reminds us she has to run to her next meeting. As we wrap up, we notice the Fitbit on her wrist, which she wears to help keep her on target for 10,000 steps a day and to track her sleep.

“I’m great at sleeping,” she laughs, “I keep missing my steps!”

Somehow, though, we get the impression that Tara won’t miss too many on the journey ahead.

Visit www.bordbia.ie