Can anyone succeed in business by really trying? Is a chipper outlook and a smile in the face of adversity all it takes? Are millionaires the same as the rest of us except that they spend more time at the office?

So Lucy Gaffney would have us believe. In newspaper interviews, she comes across just like a normal person, but with perhaps more drive. She is invariably quoted as saying she loves her work, and portrays herself as being busy, busy, busy.

She volunteers images of herself; getting up at 4 a.m. and using her children's crayons to make to-do lists, rushing home to get the washing done and the fire lit, brimming with enthusiasm for the latest business project.

But she also says of herself: "I'm nothing special. I'm a complete cog in a wheel. I am really nothing out of the ordinary. I am lucky."

True enough, the bare facts of her career do not leap off the page. Born in Dublin in 1959, she attended Loreto Convent Foxrock, Dun Laoghaire tech and UCD. She began as a secretary in a personnel agency, was made redundant, got another job as a secretary at Bell advertising, worked her way up to being an advertising executive, went to the fledgling 98 FM as marketing manager, formed her own small marketing company, wound it up, went to Esat.

Here, she performed in various marketing roles, before being put in charge of Esat Clear; Just before BT took over the company, she was appointed chief operations officer.

"Everyone underestimates Lucy," one Esat insider comments. "She is probably one of the most capable people in Irish business today."

Others say she is driven, and brings to every project a sense of urgency, and tenacity.

"If she is in charge of something she will stick to all the disparate bits until they come together," one colleague says. "And she has huge attention to detail."

"Lucy has a very common-sense approach," a source says. "She has a feel for what will wash with the punter and what won't."

A long-time associate of Mr Denis O'Brien, she is said to inspire staff in the same manner as he, making workers feel part of each project and generating loyalty.

"A big test for her was the start of Esat Clear," a company source says. "She had to get the service up, make sure it didn't fall over when it was launched - she was under phenomenal pressure to do it all by December 1st, 1998. She had a strong marketing position at that time, but was a novice from the point of view of the rest of the business, she had never held operating responsibility at that level."

Many aspects of the Esat Clear project - the company's home telephone and Internet business - were outside Ms Gaffney's direct control. The success of failure of the project depended, among other things, upon the level of service supplied by Eircom, over whose lines the traffic would pass.

"She succeeded, and I think she proved herself to Denis on that one," the source adds.

Others say she had proved herself to Mr O'Brien a long time previously. Ms Gaffney recalls with fondness how a small team of people led by Mr O'Brien organised their bid for the Republic's second mobile telephone licence.

She recalls: "I said, `Denis, I don't even know what GSM is - I know nothing about mobile phones,' and he said `Ah sure, neither do I, but we are going to learn.' We did."

This involved taking a small office in a basement down a lane near The Gingerman pub in Dublin ("Denis had no money at the time"), blacking out all the windows with paper for fear of enemy spies, and putting together a package so user-friendly that the authorities chose it over more experienced and wealthier rivals.

Since those heady days, Esat has grown somewhat. The firm led the competition with Telecom Eireann, built its own network, and now offers voice, data, Internet and mobile services. Last week, Esat was bought by British Telecom for almost £2 billion (€2.5billion); Ms Gaffney's shares are worth £3.6 million.

Other cogs in other wheels might retire. Other ordinary people might hear the call of the ski slopes, or the beach. Ms Gaffney, sick in bed with a dose of the 'flu' this week, is projecting a trip to Barcelona.

But the voyage is not a holiday.

"Next Monday all the chief operating officers from BT Europe are meeting in Barcelona. I'm going - I have to make a presentation," she says.

BT has said it wants to keep the Esat brand name, and the executive team that made it popular. In the months ahead, Esat/BT is likely to step up the competition with Eircom.

Ms Gaffney is reluctant to talk in detail about the company's future plans; whether, for example, Esat Digifone will effectively be merged with BT Cellnet, or what savings can be made by dove-tailing BT's and Esat's business in Britain and Ireland.

Industry analysts suggest there could also be job cuts in Esat, or at least redeployment of staff whose tasks have been taken over by BT head office.

Focusing on the positive, she says that Esat's target for the year is to double the business. By the end of 2000, she predicts, the company will have nearly a third of the market.

"I do love the challenge, and I adore working with a good team of people, the camaraderie," she adds. "I love going after a target."

"So we have this goal, and we will go for it," she says. "I'm sad, but I find that exciting!"

smaccarthaigh@irish-times.ie