Testimonials

Over the years, Brendan has been a consultant to us on a number of important Board level initiatives, particularly around forward planning and improving the structure and operation of our business.  For example, we first engaged Brendan at an early stage when we were thinking about a significant acquisition in London and he played an important part in helping us acquire the well-established firm of Marsh & Parsons and model our future growth. The timing and execution of this acquisition was critical in protecting the Sherry FitzGerald parent business during the depths of the property crash.  We were able to retain the direct employment of 200 people in Ireland and keep our branch network intact. We ended up successfully selling the London business which left the Sherry FitzGerald Group debt free and enabled us to emerge as the largest Irish property advisory business as the economy began to recover.

Mr. Mark FitzGerald
Chairman & Chief Executive
Sherry FitzGerald Group

Brendan worked extensively with the management team in our SuperValu and Centra business as the facilitator of our strategic planning process over the course of a number of years. Working together we collaborated to improve and refine the process. What was very impressive was the extent to which we engaged the whole of the management team each year over the planning cycle, culminating in an annual offsite meeting over several days of intensive work. To play a significant part in a large, fast paced and dynamic business like ours, the consultant needs to master a large number of disciplines all the way from the customer facing areas right through to the logistics and support functions and Brendan did that and still added his own skill to get us efficiently through to the end point. To help with implementation, Brendan also bought a suite of project management tools and reporting techniques to track and report progress, quality and risk etc. Of course being the biggest and best in the marketplace requires many people, a lot of hard work and a large number of other factors to come together, and this valuable work we did together made an important contribution to our growth as a business and I am glad to say that our brands and retailers now frequently take the largest share of the grocery market in Ireland.

Mr. Martin Kelleher
Musgrave Retail Partners Ireland
Owners of SuperValu and Centra brands

The executive management team and the Group Board worked with Brendan over the course of a number of months during which he facilitated us through a rigorous examination of the main aspects of our strategy and its implementation. It was important to us that the consultant was highly effective with a professional management team, experienced Non Executives and a strong Board. He also needed to understand the family heritage and dynamic of the company. His style and approach delivered on all of that and in an efficient, direct and straightforward manner. It was time extremely well spent and has stood us well as the Group navigated the challenges that lay ahead

Mr. Raymond Reihill
Deputy Chairman, Tedcastles

I have dealt with Brendan over the past 15 years in a variety of roles. These have included being a consulting client when I was Chairman of a joint venture company on a rapid (and thankfully successful) growth path that was inherently complex and innovative. His consulting work with all of the stakeholders, the Board and the Joint Venture served us very well and certainly stood the test of time.  He was also an active contributor to an industry body which I chaired for a number of years.  From a separate NED position, I have followed his leadership of the accountancy profession with some interest. In each of these roles I have found him to be a good strategic thinker, someone who made a real, worthwhile, valuable contribution in every case. He is a person who, beyond his client consulting work, plays an active role in civil society and this is important, particularly in Ireland.I wish him well with Navigo Consulting.

Mr. Kieran McGowan
Non Executive Director

I undertook a number of assignments with Brendan over the past number of years. During my role as Chairman of HETAC he greatly assisted that public body in formulating its strategy and improving the clarity of its goals. In doing so he blended together the best approaches available to help a public body navigate its often complex environment.

We also formally engaged Brendan as an adviser and facilitator to a number of important initiatives within our programme in UCC. These included working with a non Executive Advisory Board (each of whom are experienced and successful business people) to chart out the best route to make a world class under graduate programme even better in the future. He similarly worked in conjunction with post graduates and staff to advance the structure and commercial skills underlying the considerable research programme that we had underway.

In my experience, Brendan finds the best in the teams with whom he works and also brings the best of thinking and tools in from external sources to formulate in conjunction with management the best/most appropriate approach for a public or academic environment. In doing so he is able to sift out the relevant points and get to a productive outcome efficiently.

Professor Ciaran Murphy
Former Chairperson of the Board of HETAC – Higher Education and Training Awards Council of Ireland.
Bank of Ireland Professor of Business Information Systems and Chair of the Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems at University College Cork, Ireland.

Brendan worked with us at Board level and facilitated FLAC in thinking through and articulating the medium term strategic plan. He was also an adviser to us in some important aspects of implementing the plan including reorganising and recruiting a new CEO. He was a great assistance us at a key point in our development where we had important strategic decisions to make on our future direction and areas of focus. He did the work with skill, sensitivity and patience. In hindsight, the value of his involvement has endured and thankfully led us into a new chapter of our development.

Mr. Peter Ward, SC
Chair, Free Legal Aid Centres (FLAC)