At the heart of every successful organisation, there is a clear and well-defined purpose. At Ibec, this purpose is to help build a better and more sustainable future by influencing, supporting and delivering for business success. Ibec firmly believes that business is a force for good in Ireland by providing communities with the opportunity to lead successful lives, while also delivering the resources for a balanced and a more prosperous society.
Over successive decades, the Irish business model has delivered transformative results. The current generation of business leaders must confront a new set of opportunities and challenges generated by the three ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ events we have experienced in the past decade alone - the financial crash, Brexit and a global pandemic. The resilience of the country to these shocks has been remarkable. At no other time in our history could the Irish economy have approached challenges such as these with real confidence. Over the coming months as the success of the vaccination programme manifests with greater return to public spaces, to offices and to our experience economy, as a society we should again take confidence that the Irish economic model remains robust with real reasons for optimism.
Amidst this optimism, Irish business recognises that it must continue to be adaptive to changing economic and social headwinds. Globalisation, rapid digitalisation and new consumer and worker preferences have all intensified following the sustained period of Covid disruption. Such trends are radically transforming careers, jobs and lifestyles, and business must respond in kind. How organisations, government and individuals respond to these trends will fundamentally affect the quality of our jobs and our lives into the future. It will determine the ability of businesses to prosper and, more fundamentally, it will shape our society and living standards for generations.
Not only does Ibec intend to support its members in navigating this new world, it intends to use these opportunities and challenges to continually develop and evolve to ensure we remain an organisation of substantial influence and impact wherever our members do business. Ibec will do this by accelerating our development as a professional member services organisation by growing our membership and commercial services. Ibec harbours ambitions of developing courageous business leaders campaigning for key current and future issues, driving a better, sustainable future, both within the organisation and amidst its membership.
Ibec is committed to investing in and developing a strong and diverse talent
Ibec is ambitious for the future; we actively support growth for our people, our business and our country. Ireland must offer people good living and working conditions to sustain economic success and remain attractive to local and global mobile talent pools.
To support this purpose, Ibec is committed to investing in and developing a strong and diverse talent pipeline, building capability, and providing opportunity for our staff to gain outstanding career experiences. This commitment, alongside our ambitious growth objectives, is reflective in the expansion of our Executive Director Team over the past 12 months, with two new hires to accommodate newly established positions within the organisation.
Paula Cain has joined the organisation as its new commercial director. Under this newly created position, Paula will play a key role in delivering on Ibec's commercial growth agenda, ensuring the continuation of quality commercial services to members while working with the rest of Ibec's Executive Director Team to deliver on the organisation's purpose to help build a sustainable future by delivering for business success.
This follows the announcement of Jackie King's appointment last year as director of international business, a statement of intent of the commitment of Irish business to a strong internationally focused model of representation. The role is an integral part of our international scaling strategy, creating new international alliances and pursuing opportunities for commercial growth and strengthen Ibec's position as the global voice of Irish business on an international platform.