CEO Outlook: How an Irish start-up became a world leader with Steve Cutler, ICON

In this episode of The EY CEO Outlook podcast, ICON CEO Steve Cutler tells host Richard Curran the story of ICON’s rise from Irish start-up to global leader in a challenging and competitive field, and his role in that journey. A former Australian rugby international, Cutler sees many similarities between playing on the pitch and leading a contract research organisation  (both are competitive “contact sports”), and he describes how his former career has influenced the style and success of his leadership approach.

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ICON was founded in Ireland in 1990 by two doctors, with a staff of five people. Today, ICON is the largest contract research organisation (CRO) in the world, with a workforce of 38,000 across 47 countries, and a market capitalisation of $20bn. This extraordinary growth has made the company one of the key Irish business success stories of recent years.

Steve Cutler became CEO of ICON in 2017 and has overseen a period of intense scale in the size and value of the company. The $12bn acquisition of a competitor company and ICON’s involvement in the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been two key drivers of this growth.

They also talk about:

• Cutler’s approach to managing a workforce of 38,000 people - “you appoint really good people in key positions and you let them get on with it…my aim is to get out of their way”.
• Why ICON’s Irish roots are core to the global company culture.
• How clinical trials work and why altruism not profit drives them forward.
• Why Ireland’s corporate tax rate has been important to the company’s success.