Longford rugby club’s inaugural business lunch

Business people and rugby fans from across Longford are being encouraged to support a novel fundraising lunch hosted by Longford Rugby Club on Friday, November 4.

The club is delighted to announce that two of the country’s leading CEOs, Ballinalee’s Anne Heraty (retired CEO of CPL) and Mick Dawson (CEO of Leinster Rugby), will be on-hand to share some of their tips on managing challenges in business. MC for the business lunch will be Ciaran Mullooly.

Anne and Mick will chat with Ciaran on some of the key business lessons they have gleaned over the years.

Anne Heraty set up CPL in 1989 at the young age of 29 and became the first female chief executive of an Irish publicly quoted company 10 years later when she floated the business. She left CPL last year after its transition to new ownership. Among other roles, Anne is a former president of employers group IBEC and is non-executive board member of Irish Insulation group Kingspan.

After 21 years as CEO of Leinster Rugby, Mick Dawson will step down shortly. He will step back into Club rugby taking on the role of president of Lansdowne in their 150th anniversary next season.
In his 21 years at Leinster, Dawson has overseen the province in their most successful period of its 143 year history. He is credited with building Leinster Rugby both on and off the pitch from an amateur organisation to one of the top professional rugby clubs in world rugby. In that time, the province moved from Donnybrook to the RDS while developing both grounds along with the opening of their high performance centre and offices in UCD.

Leinster have won four Heineken Champions Cups (2009, 2011, 2014 and 2018), the European Challenge Cup in 2013 and what is now the United Rugby Championship on eight occasions, as well as two British & Irish Cups and two Celtic Cups.

MC Ciaran Mullooly started his journalistic career with the Longford Leader newspaper before becoming RTE’s midland correspondent. Having taken early retirement last year, Ciaran is an active member of the community and was one of the driving forces behind the Lough Ree Access For All Boat – a social enterprise providing valuable support services for people with disability.

Derick Turner, one of the event organisers, said, “The Business Lunch will become a fixture in the Rugby Club calendar and we are especially delighted that the inaugural lunch is being supported by such stalwarts of the rugby, business and community sectors.

It promises to be a great afternoon, offering lunch, auction and spot prizes.”

Those looking to attend this great fundraising event can find out more from Derick Turner at 086 2559624 or Hilary Davis at 087 2535859.