The latest MBA Association of Ireland event, sponsored by InterTradeIreland, took place on March 8th in Waterford Institute of Technology featuring Mr. Fiacra Nagle, CEO of O’Briens Sandwich Bars. Fiacra took the assembled group of MBA Association members and guests through ‘The O’Briens Story’, from its inception in the late 80’s by its founder, Brody Sweeney, right up to date. O’Briens Sandwich Bars have approximately 300 outlets, with close on 50% of these in the UK and with other stores as far afield as Singapore, Thailand and Australia. In November 2006, O’Briens Sandwich Bars were awarded the prestigious Irish Franchise Association ‘Retail Franchise of the Year’ award for the second time in three years and Fiacra himself won the ‘Franchise Person of the Year’ award also. Fiacra spoke of the growth of the business over the last two decades to its position today as the leader in the Irish market, of the many successes that the company has had, of their involvement with the 2003 Special Olympics and how much this meant to them and of why the franchise model works so well for O’Briens. The assembled group clearly enjoyed this straight-talking and amusing speaker, who ended the session by fielding a number of insightful questions from the audience. Head of Graduate Business at WIT, Dr. Denis Harrington, expressed his delight with the event: “It is great to have Fiacra here at WIT and I know that all members present at the event found his talk both entertaining and illuminating”. Mr. Tom Egan, MBA course director at WIT, commented “These events are of great importance to us and form an integral part of our MBA course, both for graduates returning and the current class which has 45 participants – the largest we have ever had”.

This was the first MBA Association event of 2007 in Waterford and continues a long line of high calibre guest speakers in WIT. The MBA Association of Ireland has a membership of over 2,000, including past graduates and current students of the WIT Executive MBA programme, which is in its 11th year.