EY CEO Outlook: Opportunity and AI, with Anne Sheehan, General Manager, Microsoft Ireland

Graham Reid: [00:00:08] Welcome to the EY CEO Outlook Podcast series, where our host, Richard Curran, chats to some of Ireland's leading CEOs about life and leadership. Hi, I'm Graham Reid, Partner, Head of Client and Markets at EY here in Ireland.  This week Anne Sheehan  of Microsoft Ireland is in the studio. She speaks about the importance of curiosity, the opportunities that AI can bring and why she's never over thought her career. It's a great listen and hope you enjoy.

Richard Curran: [00:00:34] Thanks Graham. Anne, you're very welcome. We have lots to talk about in relation to Microsoft;  changes in technology, AI even, but I want to start at the very beginning and go back to you grew up in Ennis in County Clare.

Anne Sheehan: [00:00:48] I did indeed the very fine Ennis.

Richard: [00:00:51] In the town?

Anne: [00:00:52] Uh, yeah, I think probably I would be a townie. Yeah, kind of near the golf links. So still a bit of a 20 minute walk into town. So it depends. I think if you're from Ennis, there's all sorts of definitions of what a townie is, but I would consider myself a townie. Yeah. For sure.

Richard: [00:01:06] And what was it like growing up then? Did you have good happy memories of school, childhood?

Anne: [00:01:11] Yeah, I do actually. I have great memories. See, Ennis I think when I think back on it now, I probably didn't appreciate it obviously as a kid, but it was a really thriving town because of its proximity to Shannon Industrial Estate. Like we had an airport like 20 minutes down the road. So it was always a really vibrant town, um, you know, great schools. So I've nothing but really happy memories. And, and a lot of what I remember is, you know, I could cycle to the swimming pool, I could cycle to the library. Um, but it was kind of great having, like, it had Shannon duty free. So that always, you know, I always dreamt about, oh, maybe I'll work in the duty free. Just always very exotic at the time when I think about it now as a kid. And, um.

Richard: [00:01:56] So you had the real local and this kind of a point of contact with the international, because I know people have spoken to many of them, business people from that region and from Clare will often say that the presence of the airport, even if it was 20 minutes away or whatever, was a bit of a window to a wider world.

Anne: [00:02:12] Absolutely, absolutely. And my dad worked for De Beers, so we were up and down in Shannon quite regularly, and when I went to college in UL, I did one of my placements in the US and I flew from Shannon and yeah, it just was like it was a really thriving town. So I didn't feel like I came from the country. You know, often people go, there was the big city in Dublin. I actually didn't feel like that at all. I thought, like, I live in a great place and lots happens here.

Richard: [00:02:37] I'm in the big city in Clare.

Anne: [00:02:39] I'm in the big city in Clare. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Richard: [00:02:42] What about school? Were you into school? Were you one of those sort of. Were you likely to be off mitching or were you likely to be very organised and really into it?

Anne: [00:02:51] I think I had a good balance. No, I was a studier. I was consistent, right. So, you know, I was quite organised and I liked to do well in my exams, but I would in parallel I had I still have but had a huge sense of fun so often my mum still talks about my school reports. Would it be like Anne's doing great, blah blah blah... Could she just talk less? So I had a huge sense of maybe a little bit of development and fun. Um, and I went to the Coláiste Mhuire - a great - I can still remember my teachers, isn't that great? I still remember nearly every year group. Um, but I loved school, and I loved college. I can't look back and think of, now, I'm a huge optimist, but I can't look back and think of like, you know, some people go, oh, I remember my Junior Cert. I remember my Leaving Cert. And oh, gosh, you know, I just remember kind of getting my results going. Great. My friends did well. Everybody seemed to be happy.

Richard: [00:03:46] It's a really good day.

Anne: [00:03:47] Yeah. And on we went.

Richard: [00:03:48] Did you have a plan for what you wanted to do when you were in secondary school?

Anne: [00:03:52] Uh, well, when I was, yeah, I mean, I, I wanted actually probably more to go into the medical side of things. So I actually kind of thought, God, maybe I'd be a good dentist. And I remember going into the career guidance teacher, she was like, that's just ridiculous. You need to do a B.Comm in Galway. I was like, okay, fair enough. My brother went on to do dentistry, so I thought, yeah, fair enough. You know, maybe more females do B.Comms so and actually at the time, um, I was looking at UL, which was NIHE, and I really thought I loved the fact that they did work placements because I thought, God, like, if you're just in college, but you never really experienced what work is like. So I remember having very, very interesting discussions with my dad who was like, well, it's NIHE and with the year I went actually became a University. And I was like, I don't care what it is, I think it's great and...

Richard: [00:04:38] You liked the idea of the practical bit and getting out into the workplace while still in college really?

Anne: [00:04:44] Absolutely. So I did a placement in Nortel, and I also got the opportunity to go to the States for a year. So when I came out of the four years, I really felt, you know, I kind of knew myself better. And for sure, even though I did accounting and finance as my primary degree for me, I knew dealing with people, you know, probably sales marketing was. Is more where I wanted to go.

Richard: [00:05:10] And you went to IBM?

Anne: [00:05:11] I did, yeah, I did, um, which was just I mean, at the time, IBM was the biggest, largest technology company in the world. It had a huge footprint in Ireland. And I can actually remember my first few weeks in IBM just going, this is incredible. Being super, super excited and just having a massive appetite to learn. So I was kind of...

Richard: [00:05:32] What was so good about it. What did you notice?

Anne: [00:05:37] I think I felt um. It was - a great question. I think there was two things. One, kind of wishing I was better. I remember like, I remember being like with the technical teams and the sales teams going, God, they're having brilliant conversations about what they want to do with customers. I don't really understand any of this, but having a massive appetite to learn and therefore, like I worked really long hours, like there was deals going on I wanted to be in the middle of them to learn, but being probably impatient going, gosh, I really want to be them someday. But I think back now, I mean, the amount that I was, was learning and how good, you know, people that were more mature in their career were to me, as you know, this grad, um, joining, they gave me incredible opportunities. I also think I was very fortunate to work for a company like IBM was probably the leader in diversity at the time. So throughout my career there, for sure, often I was the only female in a meeting room, but I never felt like that. And also I was promoted into roles. Probably each role I went into in IBM, I was far from ready, and therefore there were brilliant males that took a runner on me and said, here, look, we think she can do it.

Richard: [00:06:49] And I suppose an experience like that, you bring that with you when you then in your later career go into management.

Anne: [00:06:55] Yeah.  And I think when I reflect back and I hear, you know, I mean, I'm fortunate to have had such a great path where, you know, I didn't experience some of the other things other females have. So when I hear, um, you know, some other stories like, oh, wow. So I'm painfully, um, you know, aware that I've had a great track, but, like, that's why I do so much to kind of help other females. And we, look, we still have a lot of work to do. But I have to say, my experience as I went through IBM was fantastic. And I got to do incredible things. Um, and I think, you know, maybe often people say, does your degree set you up? And I don't know whether it does or not, but my experience in University of Limerick, for sure, like it was a campus that fostered collaboration, creativity. You got to go on work placement, you know, you brought more of your ideas, your own curiosity to things. It was quite a different way of thinking. And I think that stood me the test of time in my first few years in IBM, for sure.

Richard: [00:07:58] And with IBM, then you were involved in running, uh, the Nordics.

Anne: [00:08:03] That was my last role. Yeah. I was VP for sales and services, um, based in Copenhagen. And that was interesting because..

Richard: [00:08:12] Were you able to move full time, did you have to do a semi commute?

Anne: [00:08:15] Yeah. I just I've always kind of been able to I think, you know, I've always operated on the fact that, like when I'm there in a country, I will just give it everything. Right. And then there's I've always kind of have found a kind of like then I come back to Ireland, maybe at the weekend. I didn't come home every weekend or whatever, but I would be like, you know, that's my turn off time. Um, but the Nordics was an incredible experience because you have four different countries that get grouped together, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. They probably have nothing. Not a lot in common, but every organisation.

Richard: [00:08:48] They're very different, but..

Anne: [00:08:48] Very, very different. They have their own identity, their own cultures, but they're always grouped together. So that was a great experience. And I think Irish people are very exportable. I think we were very I think I don't know, maybe I'm generalizing but our emotional intelligence is high. So we have great ability to go in, figure out how we can change things, grow them, scale them, and also do it in a way where we're not challenging their cultures or we're seen as a threat. So I think that's probably helped me. When you work for, you know, large corporations, your ability to kind of be able to mix with any culture is super important.

Richard: [00:09:23] But clearly you had an ambition, a focus, a sense of drive in order to do that. And particularly if, you know, if you're based in Copenhagen and you want to try and get home, you know, the weekends as often as you can, you've got to be quite disciplined about things. Would you say you're disciplined and driven?

Anne: [00:09:40] It's really funny because people often talk about ambition. And, you know, I don't know whether I like the word or not. I've never over thought my career. Genuinely. Right, I really haven't. I've always wanted to do interesting jobs that make an impact for the company that I work for and for customers. If the work is interesting and I'm genuinely making a difference, right, or the business I'm leading, then I'm at my best, I think when. I'm not making an impact or I don't know what, bored is maybe the wrong word, that it doesn't really work for me. So I never overthink the titles or the position. To me, you know, is there enough scale, breadth and depth in it and therefore I've come back like I've gone backwards to go forward several times in my career. So I just don't overthink it.

Richard: [00:10:27] Where you've chosen the job that you wanted to do because of the challenge of the job rather than a ladder situation.

Anne: [00:10:31] Yeah. I mean, when I left, um, when I decided to leave IBM after 16 years, which was a massive decision, nobody really left IBM like at that time, like you kind of went into IBM and you did your full career there. But actually somebody said to me, maybe you're only good because you've been in IBM all your career. And I was like, right. Wow. And I really.

Richard: [00:10:51] That was laying down a bit of a challenge.

Anne: [00:10:53] Yeah, and I did. I actually thought about that. I played that sentence over and over and over again and went, maybe I am. So therefore I'm going to make a change. And I decided to go to Vodafone. Most people don't go tech to telco, they go telco to tech. And I got a great opportunity to learn the telco business in Ireland under Anne O'Leary. But I mean, I had been running the Nordics, which was a huge business, and I went to run a business that was, um, probably more exciting, but it was a smaller business and people were like, okay, that's a bit of a strange move. And I thought it didn't even enter my head that it was a strange move. I thought, I'm going to work with a great leader, I'm going to learn a new industry, and I'm really going to test myself as to whether I am only good because I'm in IBM. So that was a key reason for the move.

Richard: [00:11:38] That really stuck with you because it's there in the front of your mind. You can recount it, that line.

Anne: [00:11:44] Yeah for sure, for sure. And I think look I think grads coming out now or anybody entering the workforce I think will work for multiple companies. And I think the world is different. And I think it's probably a good thing. So, you know, I've never I don't I'm not a person that ever has regrets. I think I learned so much in the telco industry. It's an incredible, incredible industry.

Richard: [00:12:06] And we've talked about growing up. We've talked about your background and the early days of your career. We're going to hear about Microsoft and the future of technology. But first, we'll take a break.

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Richard: [00:12:41] So from Vodafone, the Microsoft opportunity came along. And again you're joining a new company for you and you're going in as managing director.

Anne: [00:12:52] Yeah I think um like I don't know, nine, ten, maybe nine years in, in Vodafone and I had my last role was based in the UK. So that was one of their larger businesses. So I felt when I came to the end that was a turnaround and it was for a four year period and we achieved what we wanted to achieve. So I felt at the end of that my time was done in telco. I thought, I don't have much more to give to this industry. Um, and it's an industry I admire and love. I mean, if you want to test resilience, go do a stint in the telco. Um, but I looked at Microsoft and thought, you know, wow, what Satya Nadella has done with this company, the technology probably I joined probably for the culture. Right. I read Satya's book and I thought, I just love this culture about being, you know, it's a learning culture. It's not about an expert culture. It's not about who's the cleverest person in the room. It's about who can be curious, who can learn, who can be creative. So when the opportunity came up in Ireland, um, I didn't blink. I thought, wow, what an incredible business.

Richard: [00:13:54] And the scale of it in Ireland, you weren't daunted? What is it, 4000 employees?

Anne: [00:13:58] Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a large, large entity. And what's incredible about it is it's really only one, you know, there's very few um, sites like that outside of, of the US for Microsoft that has got sales, finance, HR or deep engineering product. It's got like it's a mini Seattle based in Dublin, 97 different nationalities. It's incredible.

Richard: [00:14:24] So all the different parts of the business are here in different form. So lots of engineers then?

Anne: [00:14:32] Lots of engineers. Um an incredible just incredible. I mean, our ability to attract talent, both that we get from Ireland but that we can bring internationally into our campus has never ceased to amaze me. I mean, there's just incredible people working for Microsoft in Ireland doing incredible things. Right. And particularly what we've seen in the last few months with AI is just yeah.

Richard: [00:14:53] Yeah. And it's such a time of change in tech. I mean, tech is on an accelerated path. It's always changing and it's always evolving. But with AI, there's a sense in which it's on a fast track in terms of the level of change. Is that how you see it? And Microsoft is very heavily involved in AI?

Anne: [00:15:11] I think, I mean, I'm probably maybe sharing a bit now my age, but I mean, I'm kind of around tech if you take it for like over 20 years. And if you take it by the various different inflection points from when the internet came out to the PC, internet, cloud, mobile, they were all big inflection points, um, in technology. And the adoption, you know, was fast. But it took years. Like we're still on a journey to cloud. AI. The difference with AI is the speed of the adoption, the speed. I mean, we've made our announcements, albeit we've been Microsoft has been working on AI for over six years, but the speed of the announcements of the products that we've brought out in the last few months, I've never seen anything like it. Where customers are like, this can change. This can be an enabler to help tackle some of the challenges we've struggled with across all industries be it health, financial services, whatever the industry is. And we're like doing proof of concepts testing in weeks going, yeah, that might work, you know, into production. I've never I've never seen the speed and the appetite in my career to what I'm seeing in the last few months.

Richard: [00:16:18] And that pace of change inevitably has drawn people to, to question, is it too fast? Is it where is this going to take us, and what way is it going to change our society or jobs or employment? Where do you see that fitting in? I suppose, first of all, do you think it will lead to a fundamental change? And it's very hard to predict because it's still in its infancy. And secondly, where do those changes lie, or how do you feel about the pace of change?

Anne: [00:16:45] I think look like we've been through so many different changes. If you go back to when like factories were first to automated, like it's always it's fair to have the debate right. You know, what will change bring and the good and the bad side. So like that's a good debate to have. But I think like in anything that has any change that we've seen over the years, I think when you embrace it, it's about change for good. I think the Microsoft view from an AI and, you know, we're leading the way is all around responsible AI. So we've been working on it for six years. We have our framework. Our framework has several aspects to it around privacy, security, safety, transparency, accountability. So it's about responsible AI now like in anything right, there's always bad actors. So our job is to work together with academia, government, the policymakers to make sure we have AI for good. I think if I focus on the positive, the pace of change to tackle really challenging problems, like there isn't a country that hasn't got challenges in their health system, like financial services, like where customers go. I'd prefer more hyper personalisation. All the things we've been trying to address over the years. I'm not saying AI is going to fix everything, but it will speed it up and it's an enabler. And that's where our focus is on can we work with customers, the ecosystem to try and help here to tackle these challenges? I think in terms of jobs and workers, like, I think for sure AI will be an element of every worker in the go forward, right, to help them and to enable them. I think my view is there is a huge element of society that the moment that don't get to partake in tech, right, that I think on the back of I will get to partake. And if I look at some of the work that we're doing, Richard, to help on that, if I look at Dream Space, which a lot of people listening to this may know about or may not, or their kids may have been through it, that's a program that we've been running for a good few years in Microsoft, and that's all about digital enablement of our kids, right? Because in our educational system, there isn't enough digital enabled. And when we talk about females and STEM and what we're doing in Microsoft is working with primary and secondary schools, right, to help them, to give them courses. We've two schools a day present in Microsoft. We also partner with RTE Junior, where we can broadcast digitally. And in the last while we've announced our AI skilling program. So that's a program that anybody over 18 can sign up to six weeks and get accredited for the fundamentals of AI. We've just gone live with hundreds of people signed up. So it's about like, how do we help everybody across society to be part of this?

Richard: [00:19:33] You have a partnership with EY?

Anne: [00:19:35] Yeah.

Richard: [00:19:36] So what are you doing with them on AI?

Anne: [00:19:38] So EY, long standing partner of Microsoft and actually they partner with us across all our range of products to really drive digital transformation. And they have an area called wave space. It's a program that they run. And what we've been doing with them on AI is really bringing customers in to go, what's the art of the possible? Because back to the original point, like, you know, nobody knows the end of the movie. And this, this is about looking at the technology, what are the challenges customers have? And EY and Microsoft working together were customers to go, let's try this. So this is about being curious about being creative to say, you know, what could it help tackle this problem? Starting small POCs - proof of concepts - and then saying right, yeah it does work. So some it'll work, some it won't. And we do, we're doing a lot of that with EY in wave space. It's an incredibly exciting time. I mean most days now I'm like wow right. It's just it really is incredible.

Richard: [00:20:39] Well, in the debate about AI and conversations, I find that people tend to be, um, some people tend to be emphasising all of the opportunities and they're not too worried about change or safety issues or regulation. And then others are sort of scaremongering about machines taking over the world, and they're not talking about the opportunities. And an interesting point. I was at a conference recently. Somebody made the point that whatever about the capacity of something like ChatGPT right now, this is probably it can do certain things and it can't do other things. This is probably the worst AI will ever be, because it's only just going to get better and better. It'll get better at doing things. So when people point out limitations or flaws, it will get better.

Anne: [00:21:21] Yeah. I mean, the concept of Microsoft is the copilot. So you were still I'm still the pilot. So if I'm using it to help me in my mail, to help me take minutes of my meeting, I'm still the pilot, right. And that's important. And I think, look, debates are great, right? And actually to hear all opinions is super important. And that's, you know, what helps create the policies. Right. And back to my point earlier, you know, we're really leaning in with governments, with academia, with everybody. Right. Society to go. Let's make sure the policies, the regulation is where it needs to be. Right. Because we can look back and say like, does regulation and policy always get it right? I don't know, right. But we're having all the right discussions. Um, and it's like anything, it's like security and it's like cyber. Will there be bad actors? Are there people there at the moment working on how they can exploit it? Of course there is. But the job of companies like Microsoft is to work really, really hard with the smartest people to make sure what we're doing is responsible and back, that we can make it as secure as possible for our customers.

Richard: [00:22:24] And you mentioned Anne about dream space and education when you look at Ireland and the education system and what we have achieved with the graduates that that we have, and particularly in relation to technology, could we do better, do you think, where might we improve things? Are the are the graduates that you're seeing coming out of the Irish education system as good as you would need or like them to be?

Anne: [00:22:49] Uh, first of all, I think we have a brilliant education system, right? Um, and our ability to hire and scale quickly. Right. And that's what we do in Microsoft, we could get a mission, and we have to scale and hire quickly. And the work that we do and the partnership that we have with the universities is fantastic, right? So we wouldn't be the scale and size, um, that we are in Ireland if we didn't get brilliant people and we didn't, you know, have great universities. My view, though, is the world is changing. So if I think of, you know, when I did my Leaving Cert, you learn off a lot of stuff, right? And you put it on a piece of paper. Think about a world in AI in the coming years where some of that thing that you learn is already there. Then actually what we need to be able to do is interrogate it, be curious, be creative. What are the right questions to ask? So I think you know the talent of the future. You know, maybe more people that are artistic. You know, I think it's changing and therefore we have to evolve. So my concern would be that we go, we're producing great graduates. And then we look in five years time and go, you know, other countries have left us behind because they've pivoted. And I think we can see that in dream space. We can see how kids want to learn. They want to, you know, question things. They want to play around with them. They want to be curious. And that is fantastic. And when I, you know, when I spend time in dream space and I see kids from all sorts of different backgrounds, all sorts of academic, um, capabilities, when you see them be creative and you give them puzzles to solve, it levels everything out. And I think in the world we go forward, that is what we need. We need to bring to life more the creative side, the more curious side. And I think the questions is, is our education system designed for that today? I'm not sure.

Richard: [00:24:36] Are we still maybe learning off too much stuff, we don't need to learn off.

Anne: [00:24:39] Exactly, because that's not what where the world will be. Um, and it's not like ten years time. I mean, the pace of change that we're seeing, this is like years, months. So I really, really think we really have to look at, you know, how our kids are learning now and evolve. Look, we have, you know, I think one of the best education systems, the world so we can do it. But we have to create the time and space and we have to make sure that way we're training our teachers is different and it evolves.

Richard: [00:25:09] What do you do to unwind Anne? Are you into or is it a myth that everyone in Clare is into hurling?

Anne: [00:25:15] Yeah, I love Hurling. First of all, I love sport, right? Even if I don't know a lot about it, there's nothing you could. I could go to any sports stadium in the world and have the best time ever. I think it's a matter of the maybe it's the atmosphere, the energy, the competitiveness. Love it. I think hurling is incredible. They just, you know, um, the pace of the game, the skill is unbelievable. So I love it. I love that Clare hurling team. They need to win an All Ireland soon.

Richard: [00:25:48] Any chance to go and see them you'd take that chance. Do you get back home often or?

Anne: [00:25:53] Um that's just a question I don't want you to ask me. I like now that I'm based in Ireland, even though I have to do a bit of travel. Um, I probably don't get. I try and get down maybe once every two, three months. Right. Um, but I should probably do more. But I speak to my parents all the time. They're fantastic. They're very independent. If they never saw me, they'd be fine as long as I ring them. Uh, but if I, if I have as much energy, um, I think as John and Phil have, I think they're in their 80s now, then I think life will be good.

Richard: [00:26:26] Anne there are a number of questions that I ask all of our guests on this podcast. You could call it the Quick fire round, and I'll throw them at you. Uh, the first one is what CEO or entrepreneur do you most admire and why?

Anne: [00:26:39] So I have a few answers to this. So first of all, Satya Nadella. And that's because I work for Microsoft. He is the reason I joined Microsoft. I think culturally, what he has done with an organisation of the scale and size of Microsoft is quite incredible. And now that I'm, I came from the outside in and I'm living the culture, I go, I'm he's quite a spiritual leader. So he's my number one. I think I also I just have such admiration for so many female entrepreneurs. Um, Andrea Reynolds from swoop.com, Patricia Scanlon from, um, Soapbox Labs. I mean, they're just incredible, like, on our own doorstep. I get to meet them every now and then. I just go, wow, these are just incredible people doing incredible things. You know, a mile from a mile from where I'm sitting now.

Richard: [00:27:27] And we have more and more, uh, female entrepreneurs as well. Great success stories. Your favourite book or film?

Anne: [00:27:33] I'm reading, um, a book at the moment called Poor by, um, Katriona  O’Sullivan. She's a professor in Maynooth.A really tough read. Um, but an incredible book. I'm halfway through it and I talked. I talk about, like, my childhood being fantastic. I mean, this girl is this woman, should I say, is incredible. I mean, what she's achieved. I don't know if you've had the opportunity, if you haven't read the book.

Richard: [00:27:59] I haven't read.

Anne: [00:28:00] Unbelievable.

Richard: [00:28:01] And it's an incredible story.

Anne: [00:28:02] Yeah. Unbelievable.

Richard: [00:28:03] And her insights that she brings into it are fascinating. Eh do you have a mantra in business something that guides you?

Anne: [00:28:09] Work hard, good things happen. Really simple.

Richard: [00:28:13] Simple as that.

Anne: [00:28:14] Yeah.

Richard: [00:28:15] Okay. When finished this job, what would you like people to say about what you achieved and how you did it?

Anne: [00:28:22] Um, for me, it would be. I did my best. Um, I had an impact, I was fair. Right. You can be tough, but you can be fair. And I'm a huge advocate of kindness. I was actually speaking at something recently. Um, I think the room was a bit shocked when I said, like, I had an all hands right where you bring everybody together. And actually, you'd think the natural thing is we finish up going, you know, the numbers or your product. I was actually if we could all just be a little bit kinder to each other, wouldn't the world be better? So for me, I think kindness is huge. If everybody in the world was 10% kinder, wouldn't we be in a better place?

Richard: [00:29:02] Absolutely. Biggest mistake or regret?

Anne: [00:29:06] I don't, so have I made mistakes? Loads of them. I tend to make them, learn from them really quickly and then I do not dwell on them. I don't. Like if you said to me this morning, look back over like 21 years, I can hardly I know I've learned from them because I know I won't do that again, but I don't. I do not dwell on the past at all.

Richard: [00:29:27] Regret is a sort of negative force.

Anne: [00:29:29] What's the point?

Richard: [00:29:31] Advice that you'd have for other business leaders starting out?

Anne: [00:29:35] Um, I would be limitless in your thinking. And I really mean that. And I learned that from great bosses over the years. So some people go, I'm based in Ireland. We're a small country. Ridiculous, right? Look at like some of our some of the companies I deal with are global leaders based out of Ireland or when I was in the Nordics they go, well, we're for small countries. It's ridiculous. So I would be limitless in in your belief and your thinking, surround yourself by brilliant people and be true to your values. Always stand by your values and if you end up breaching those, you're in the wrong role. You're doing the wrong thing. But I think values are super important.

Richard: [00:30:12] Anne it's been a pleasure talking to you about your career, your background, and the journey that brought you to the role of MD at Microsoft Ireland. There's so much change taking place in the world of technology. I think it would be great, actually, to have you back in about 5 or 10 years from now, and.

Anne: [00:30:27] I'd be very old then.

Richard: [00:30:29] But we could look back and see how things have changed or not, or what way it all played out.

Anne: [00:30:34] That's the date. I'll see you in 5 or 10 years.

Richard: [00:30:36] I don't know if I'll be around. Anne Sheehan thank you very much for joining us.

Anne: [00:30:40] Thank you.

Richard: [00:30:40] We hope you're enjoying this EY podcast CEO outlook series. Remember, you can catch previous interviews we've done with lots of other CEOs. Until the next time, thanks for listening. Bye bye.

Speaker5: [00:30:52] EY Building a better working world.