What is your background?

I grew up on a farm as my dad was a tillage farmer. Over my career, I’ve worked in sales, marketing and advertising in France for many years, so I understand the business culture and etiquette of France. I previously worked for the World Trade Organisation, or GATT as it was known, for a number of years in Geneva. I now live back in Ireland and am qualified to teach French.

How do you want to help businesses in the agri food sector?

All of us in Ireland are so consumed with the ongoing Brexit negotiations and what’s happening in London right now that we’re missing out on the opportunity of trying to engage in new markets. I want to help small- to medium-sized agri food companies to upskill their staff in their language skills. We’re obsessed with Brexit but we forget Ireland is part of the eurozone and there’s a huge market on the continent that Irish food businesses now need to look to. Irish SMEs need to have the confidence to upskill their own staff rather than outsourcing marketing or sales to other companies who don’t really know the business. They also need government support to do this.

Have you helped any Irish food companies diversify into new markets already?

In August this year, I was contacted by George Allen, who is the sales and business development manager in Boyne Valley Meats. He told me he wanted to get Boyne Valley Meats “Brexit-ready” and begin diversifying into new markets. So I’ve since been helping George learn business French.

Has Boyne Valley Meats been able to develop new business in France?

Prior to this, Boyne Valley Meats was extremely reliant on the UK market for exports. However, Boyne Valley has since grown its business in France with a number of new customers. The sales figures speak for themselves, with Boyne Valley shipping more and more meat to France every month.

How difficult is it to upskill in a language in order to do business?

When George came to me, he had very rusty leaving cert French. But within two weeks of starting the lessons, he’d already made sales to new French customers. The biggest thing was getting the pronunciation and fluency right and building the confidence to make a cold call to a company in France.

What’s different about doing business in a market like France?

There’s a different etiquette to doing business in France, which is important for businesses looking to enter the market to understand. The most important thing for companies is that first call and being able to get past that first major barrier – the receptionist. Using my experience of doing business with French people, I can help companies like Boyne Valley Meats to find new business in markets like France, as well as French-speaking parts of Belgium and Switzerland. Ireland was also recently granted observer status of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, which comprises 58 French speaking states.