Making Waves

She doesn't look like your average computer geek:

That's because she isn't one. Orla Brannigan recently bagged the senior marketing job in an up-and-coming software firm even though she admits that before she took up the job she hardly knew anything about the computer business.

That must have been an awkward moment at the interview:

Not as tricky as 'fessing up to having had six different jobs in 10 years.

Give her a break. That's not unusual in the Mac Job generation: You can forget that slacker talk for a start - Orla is the definitive Top Girl. When this 31-year-old, Co Monaghan woman from Castleblayney shifted careers, it was discussed at Cabinet level, no less. She started her working life making beds in her parents' hotel and ended up flogging more than nine million bed nights as Bord Failte's General Manager, Europe. She's news because she left there to join software company Flexicom as Senior Vice President, Marketing.

Hang on. Orla jacked in the permanent and pensionable at Bord Failte. Her poor parents!

Well what would you do? Even if she hung around and eventually got the top job in Bord Failte it brings in a salary plus bonus of £80,000 - that's lunch money for computer bods.

Fair enough, but having your CV discussed at Cabinet? Well the boys in the shiny suits are worried about talent leaving the semi-States and Orla was just one of three senior executives to take the Bord Failte slogan "Wherever it takes you" a little too literally . . . and check out. And she is one of the brightest and best, with her sharp marketing savvy and extraordinary presentation skills.

Fine, but who ever heard of Flexicom? Only anyone who hasn't come over all ostrich-like about the introduction of the euro in January. It is set to hit paydirt because it has developed some super dooper software system that's capable of handling multiple currencies simultaneously.

That's all very well, but doesn't the name sound a bit daft? All computer-related names sound daft and made up, simply because they are. Don't you think Steve Jobs had a hard time over Apple? And let's face it, Microsoft sounds like a case for Viagra.

But marketing software - isn't that a bit, well, dull? Call £5 million dull? That's what Flexicom is probably going to raise when it floats on the stock exchange.

Still though, it's a difficult job? Not as brain-numbing as trying to explain to the nation why the shamrock is so tiny in that infamous new Bord Failte logo, and debating with creatively challenged politicians whether the two brush-stroke characters are dancing or hugging.