Having spent three decades in Germany working for other people, Brendan McKearney recently established his own consultancy service to advise Irish companies supplying high tech solutions to the German automotive and technology sectors.
McKearney left Frankfurt-based Fujitsu Semiconductor this year after 25 years, during which McKearney rose to the top of the organisation becoming its managing director in 2009 and its first European-born president and management board member in 2011.
Europeans often struggle with the Japanese way of doing things. McKearney thrived and says growing up in a farming community in Ballybay, Co Monaghan, prepared him well for the consensus culture.
“I came from a background with a history of farmers sharing equipment and helping each other out. In ways it was very similar to the co-operative Japanese approach,” he says.
“There is still a huge difference in business culture between Asia and Europe but I think being Irish helps,” he adds. “We’re generally good with people, willing to work hard and adaptable. I definitely wouldn’t say the Germans work harder but their focus is different and their most notable trait is that they’re very gracious losers at football . . . They emphasise being effective and efficient whereas Irish people like to improvise and just get things done with the tools in hand.”
Japanese companies often get criticised for not empowering overseas employees and subsidiaries. McKearney says Fujitsu was the opposite.
“We had over 400 people in Europe and fewer than 5 per cent were Japanese. The Fujitsu culture in Europe was very dynamic. We had a lot of autonomy, world-class design teams and revenues of several hundred million euro. During my time as president, we won first place twice in our category in the Great Place to Work awards.”
McKearney left Ireland in 1984 when the economy was on its knees and jobs for young graduates were rare as hen’s teeth. He had studied electrical engineering at DIT Kevin Street and ended up in Germany by chance. It could easily have been Britain or the United States as he had applied for jobs in both.
Language classes
His first job was as a development engineer at EPI Messtechnik in Wiesbaden. He quickly recognised that fluency in German would be a major asset and took language classes at night followed by a degree in German.
He joined Fujitsu Semiconductor in 1989 as a technical author before moving into product marketing. He then spent the next 25 years developing the business in major European vertical markets.
read more: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/combining-the-know-how-and-know-who-in-consulting-1.2435184
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