Ireland’s over-50 entrepreneurs: ‘My bones tell me I’m 65, but my brain tells me I’m 25’

Every day that passes we add six hours on to our average life expectancy. A baby born in the developed world today could conceivably live to be 142 years old; most babies born since the year 2000 will see their 100th birthday.

But society’s expectations haven’t kept pace with these changing demographics. Retirement at 65 made sense when we didn’t expect to live beyond 70. With average life expectancy predicted to be 90 by 2050, some of us can expect to spend 25 years in what’s known as our “third act”.

For some of us that’s not a liberating thought so much as an alarming one: already as many as two-thirds of people believe they will have no choice but to work beyond age 66, while 71 per cent would like the option to phase their retirement.

What all of this demands is a dramatic shift in our mindset about ageing.

‘You don’t retire from being a woman’

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Major figure in Northern Ireland’s Labour politics of the 1960s

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The woman who championed the ‘Ms’ honorific

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With the proposed lifting of the mandatory retirement age "people will be able to work longer, but this requires companies to rethink their attitude to 50-plus workers, and consider how they can continue to use the extensive skills and experiences they have accumulated," says Anne Connolly, CEO of ISAX (Ireland Smart Ageing Exchange), a network of institutions collaborating to develop and commercialise solutions for the global smart ageing economy with the support of Bank of Ireland.

In reality, what happens is that “despite having a huge range of skills and experience, [they] can feel like they are being discriminated against” because of their age.

For some starting a business is a viable alternative to facing rejection – or even worse, silence – from prospective employers. For others, their children growing up and leaving home gives them an opportunity to realise a long-held dream of starting their own business.

Still others are necessity entrepreneurs – they might rather be thinking about retirement, but their post-crash financial circumstances have left them with no choice but to reinvent themselves.

Over-50s entrepreneurs have many advantages over their younger peers: they have a wealth of professional and life experiences to draw on; more focus and fewer distractions and, in some cases, a financial safety net.

“We know from research that the average age of a first-time entrepreneur in Ireland is 39. Those aged 50-plus who start a business have a greater chance of success than many younger entrepreneurs,” says Connolly.

Here are the stories of some of Ireland’s over-50s entrepreneurs.

Stephen Pennington, Atturos

“I wanted to make a contribution, and to be doing something new and different every day”

"I wanted to feel I'd made a contribution, and put something useful out there into clinical practice. That could never have happened if I'd just kept writing academic papers. And, finally, I'm not keen on the idea of retiring at 65," says Stephen Pennington, founder of Atturos, of his decision to found a start-up after 30 years in academia.

Pennington leads a team at UCD doing research in the area of proteomics – the study of proteomes and their functions. It led to the development of a new blood test to determine the best course of treatment for prostate cancer. “There were two opportunities: one was to license it, the other was to spin out from the university and progress it ourselves,” he says.

He decided to go for it. “My kids have grown up and flown the nest, and I now have the opportunity of much more time dedicated to myself.

“Academics in general underestimate the capabilities they have. I have been able to switch on and go back to working as hard as I ever have. I had a massive network of relevant individuals to tap into to put together a really talented team.

“It’s been a rollercoaster. We have just taken on our first two employees, and opened a new lab on the UCD campus. We’re at a really interesting inflection point, looking to raise our next level of finance and we’re developing a pipeline of products.”

Earlier this year Atturos was selected as one of the companies to participate in the AIB Start-up Academy, a joint venture between AIB and The Irish Times, and it was awarded "most investible start-up" at one of Europe's largest business angel events.

Academia is unusual, Pennington says, in that "people's experience and expertise is recognised and valued" and there is no shortage of "role models of people who've been productive later in life. The man who discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer, Sir Richard Doll, published more papers after the age of 65 than he did before."

Cathy Whitty, Cathy’s Spelt for Health

“It’s about knowing that when you’re up against the big fellows you can hold your own against them”

Cathy Whitty’s venture into entrepreneurship came about following an incident in 2007 that was very nearly life-changing for all the wrong reasons. “I was working as a home help and having tea with one of the ladies I worked for when my tongue suddenly started swelling.”

Having never previously had any allergies, she was in anaphylactic shock. “I drove three or four miles to the doctor and I just got in the door before I collapsed. She gave me the adrenaline injection. Your life flashes before you. I’m very lucky to be alive.”

A keen domestic baker, she was put on an exclusion diet that meant missing out on some of the food she loved. “I was off wheat and dairy. I really missed bread, so a neighbour asked if I had heard of spelt flour.”

Whitty's experiments with spelt flour proved such a success that she started baking loaves for the local health food shop in Tinahely, Co Wicklow. She might never have progressed beyond that if her daughter hadn't seen an ad for RTÉ's Recipe for Success programme.

She made it to the final, and though the judges loved her bread they said the ingredients were too expensive for it to ever be commercialised. “I saw it as a challenge,” says Whitty, who was then in her mid-60s.

Her solution to keeping costs down without compromising on quality was to "put all my good ingredients into a bag that the customer would bake at home for themselves". Cathy's Spelt for Health was born, with the assistance of Wicklow County Enterprise Board and the EU-funded Senior Enterprise programme.

“Stay-at-home mammies have a lot of skills in everything. We learn a lot that we don’t even know we’ve learned. I never realised that I was this ambitious. When you’re older and at home you lose your confidence. Women of my generation were supposed to rear the family and then rear the grandchildren. You were nearly forgotten about as a person.”

Discovering her entrepreneurial spirit in her 60s has given her “a whole new lease on life”.

“None of us are ever going to be millionaires or earn a whole lot of money. But for me it’s about knowing that when you’re up against the big fellows you can hold your own against them.”

Anne-Marie Taylor, Career Returners

“We now live 30 years longer than our grandparents – and a lot of people have taken early retirement, but want to continue working”

Anne-Marie Taylor had what she describes as “a lightbulb moment” that led to her mission to bring experienced people back to the workforce last year when she identified the convergence of three distinct trends around how we work and live.

“We now live 30 years longer than our grandparents – and a lot of people have taken early retirement, but want to continue working. At the same time I could see a lot of really talented women and men who have left the workforce, perhaps to care for children or their own parents, and they would really like to resume their career.”

The third trend was the gig economy.

"Putting all those trends together I thought there was a business opportunity to help people get back to the workforce in a flexible way," says Taylor, who had previously a 30-year career as a management consultant, first with Accenture and subsequently independently.

Promoting women in the workforce has been a longstanding passion: she is a co-founder of the Board Diversity Initiative, which produces a directory of women available to serve on boards, and is on the steering group of the 30% Club.

Her new venture, Career Returners, is a consultancy, coaching and training company focused on helping both women and men to return to their careers. She also helps what she describes as "returner-friendly companies" design and implement supports for people who want to come back to work.

“One thing that works very well is ‘returnships’. This is the equivalent of what companies offer to graduates, where the women go back in for three months with no long-term commitment. That’s a risk-free way for both parties to try it out. All the research shows that people who come back to the workforce are very motivated.”

Taylor says she has learned a lot through the process of setting up her own business. “I’ve learned that I love to be challenged and I love to keep learning.”

For more information about how Career Returners helps people of all ages get back to the workforce contact info@careerreturners.ie

Grainne Byrne, Dogwalking.ie

“My clients are always pleased to see me, jump all over me and lick my face”

After a 30-year career in public relations, Grainne Byrne was in her 50s when she decided to do something completely different.

“I wanted to do something with animals. I thought about veterinary nursing. I thought about dog grooming. But I’ve always loved hiking, so I thought ‘I’ll do dogwalking’. And that was it. There were no set up costs, no need to retrain.

“The PR industry was badly hit by the recession, and so before I decided to do the dogwalking I looked for a full-time job. But I found that you send out CV after CV and people don’t reply to you. A friend who works in a recruitment company told me it was actually set up to screen people out when they’re over 40. I wouldn’t put my age on there, but it’s easy to figure out. Friends advised me to take a few jobs off my CV and my LinkedIn to make myself look younger. When there’s such a shortage of skills it’s such a short-sighted attitude to write people off just because they’re over 40. To be honest, I didn’t really want to go and work for somebody else anyway.”

Running her own dogwalking business has been “more physically demanding and tiring than I expected”.

“You spend a lot of time making sure the dogs get on – it’s not just a case of picking up seven dogs and getting going. But I love it, and I’m planning to expand the service nationwide. I’m out in the air every day. My clients are always pleased to see me, jump all over me and lick my face – where else would you get that?”

Aine Cuddihy, Minicakes

“I’m only getting started. My bones tell me I’m 65, but my brain tells me I’m 25”

Aine Cuddihy is what’s called a “necessity entrepreneur”. A teacher for almost 30 years, she retired on disability in 2010 at the age of 59, after being injured at work. She had planned on a peaceful retirement, helping her husband in his guesthouse business, but the recession ended that dream.

“His business went belly up and we had no money; we had literally nothing to live on. I only had a small pension because I had taken eight years out of work. For years I had been making cakes for everybody for free, and I thought ‘I’ll do that’. It was a case of needs must.”

Cuddihy's idea was to set up a bakery making cakes small enough for a couple to enjoy. "I decided my market would be people of my own age group. I started making mini versions of vanilla cakes and sponges. I saw an ad for the Senior Enterprise course so I headed off to Portlaoise to find out about the practicalities."

The cakes were selling well when her daughter approached her with an idea she’d seen on Pinterest, for the cake pop craze sweeping America. “So I started doing cake pops and putting them together in bouquets like flowers.”

The orders began rolling in. “I am now so many years down the road and my business is predominantly wedding cakes. I’ll do two cakes and a selection of cupcakes, cake pops and macaroons instead of just a single big cake.”

For the last few years everything she made has been reinvested in the business. “People are under the impression that people my age have loads of money; I did this because I didn’t have money. It’s only now starting to produce an income.

“I’m only getting started. My bones tell me I’m 65, but my brain tells me I’m 25. I don’t intend to retire at all. I have been relieved of the shackles of children and I can admire my grandchildren from afar – I now think I have more energy and more enthusiasm than ever.

"The biggest surprise for me is how much I was able to adapt to how things are done now, and using things like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It's a whole new world, and you can either be frightened of it or you can embrace it. I have so much more to give."

Fergal Keogh, Simtech

“A lot of people don’t understand or realise how much they know until they start to apply it”

Fergal Keogh finally retired from his second career as an entrepreneur earlier this year at the age of 71. Until his 50s he had spent most of his working life in the Middle East, where he was a CEO for a multinational. “In 1999, we’d been down there for 20 years, and our children were starting university so we wanted to come back.”

When he came back to Ireland he felt he was too young to retire – even if the companies he was talking to didn’t seem to agree.

“At that stage you’re not very employable even though you’ve got a lot of experience and seniority – you wouldn’t be very welcome in the workplace when you’re 50. So for me, like a lot of people in that situation, it’s a matter of setting something up for yourself.”

Keogh’s daughter introduced him to a friend who had spotted an opportunity to set up a company offering flight simulator training to pilots. Simtech launched in 2004, when Keogh was 57. “It was a new industry, but business is business. Staff management, sales, finance, managing large territories, putting business plans together, dealing with banks – all of the same things apply.”

He and his team built the business up, offering services to airlines and helicopter companies from all over the world, including CityJet, Tiger Airways in Singapore, Aer Arran and airlines from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. When it was sold earlier this year, Keogh was finally ready to enjoy his retirement.

“I think there’s excellent potential” in the smart ageing workforce, he says. “A lot of people don’t understand or realise how much they know until they start to apply it. Whatever comes up, they’ve done it before, they’ve been through it before. I think it’s a terrible to see all that experience go to waste.”