Roadmap to Leadership

In the latest in this Next Gen Leaders series, Deloitte Partner, Kevin Butler, speaks with Ian McDermott, CFO of Genesis Automation. From defining leadership to reflecting on career pivots, Ian charts a roadmap for aspiring leaders to navigate challenges and embrace growth.

Building a Start-up Culture

“It’s like a drug, it’s just infectious,” Ian tells Kevin Butler as he reflects on his current role as CFO of Genesis Automation, a Cork-based healthcare software company. Prior to Genesis, Ian worked on the corporate development team of a FTSE 100 company as well as with Deloitte across both assurance and corporate finance practices.

Drawing inspiration from the Japanese philosophy of Ikigai, that which you enjoy, you are good at and is valuable, Ian explains to Kevin that exposure to various environments and challenges moulded his thinking and shaped the foundation for a fulfilling career.

“The biggest thing for me was getting my professional exams. Through that process it allowed me to understand what I am good at and what I am interested in and if you can align those two things it will get you on a pathway towards what your goals are. I found my way through Deloitte in audit, moved into corporate finance and really liked that forward looking kind of style, and then I moved into big corporate and got experience there. I have gone into the startup environment now and there are challenges involved, but for me the biggest thing is you really get to test your skillset because you are stretched in so many ways,” he explained.

“The switch into the private equity backed startup, the culture you are creating as you go is what is infectious because every little thing makes a huge difference.”

The Leadership Journey

Although each step in Ian’s career was a conscious choice driven by a desire for personal and professional alignment it wasn’t all plain sailing, and to become the leader he is now he had to take learnings along the way.

“For me leadership is about ownership, accountability, and execution. It’s about leading from the front and that’s not just grabbing the ball and charging ahead, that’s part of it, but it’s also about enabling the people around you. That is a skill in itself,” he tells Kevin.

“I’m a very direct person, I’m straight to the point but I have to be conscious of that myself and tailor my leadership style to make sure it works for others,” he says.

The Douglas native says although accountancy was in his family and he always loved numbers, this career allowed him to apply some of the skills he acquired through his time playing rugby in Christian Brothers College.

“In school I played rugby and captained some of our teams, so it was natural for me to slot into that leadership role, I had been doing it in a team environment. I think with sport you are emotionally invested in the team and driving the team forward towards the goal and it frames how you go about this,” he tells Kevin. “If you think about setbacks, defeat, how you pick yourself up, and how you pick others up around you.”

These skills were the foundation for Ian on his leadership journey.

The road to success

Ian explains to Kevin Butler that the most important piece of advice he received stuck with him throughout his career and has enabled his pursuit of excellence.

“One of the best pieces of advice I got is that you represent the company, but fundamentally you are representing yourself, so you set your own standards and drive from that point. Don’t flex on that for anybody,” he says.

“I got that piece of advice and I never thought about how standards are so important in everything that you do from the most mundane task to the complex, because you can build that into how you do things, and it becomes habit. I got this bit of advice because

I dropped below my standards at one point”.

It was a learning that Ian has remembered, and a lesson he has benefitted from.

“I look back on that moment fondly, because I got great advice. But at the time I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I just was rushing, rushing, rushing instead of taking my time doing what I should have done, which was deliver. I was embarrassed but you have to take the learnings out of it and that’s what I did,” Ian explains. “Just when you think it’s good enough, step away for five minutes and come back to it again and you’ll pick up all the items that you have missed, so that helps you in getting your standards to a level where you have excellence. When you step away it gives you objectivity.”

Today Ian is responsible for all aspects of financial and commercial governance across the Genesis Automation Group.

“When I started in Genesis, I think we had three customers, three hospitals using our technology, we now have 55 customers in 110 hospitals using our tech. That is in the space of about seven years”.

Ian also prides himself and the company on the people they surround themselves with, “We have an average tenure of four and a half years, so it just shows the people that we have hired when we are scaling have stayed with us along the way and believe the journey that we are on”.

He says the company’s strategy has enabled their success,

“It’s about time management and prioritisation”.

“That prioritisation feeds into every aspect, whether it is ongoing customer success, ongoing project delivery or new sales pursuits that we are going after, everything is triaged and given a prioritisation and resources allocated so that we can make sure it has the right clout behind it to actually achieve what we want to achieve. A professional sports player has to be at their best on a Saturday but on a Monday if they were to take to the field, they probably wouldn’t play anywhere near it so it is all about prioritisation. As you keep going along keep prioritising and get the resources behind it so that on a Saturday, you are ready.”

Be Brave

When asked by Kevin what advice he would give to an aspiring CFO, Ian simply says, “Just don’t be afraid of it”.

“Don’t be afraid of the challenge, embrace your weaknesses, people spend too long focused on their weaknesses and seeing them as a limiting factor. The reality is, they are areas of huge growth. Understand your weaknesses, embrace them and then look to correct them. Be critical about your own background, have you got the toolkit to do it, where are you deficient and where do you need to improve, but that is not a limiting factor. You should absolutely not be afraid to charge on and go for it and when you are in the job set yourself a plan and build that toolkit as you go. Be brave.” in association with

Ian says there is a perception that employers are looking for the perfect fit but this is often a deterrent for the ideal candidate and doesn’t acknowledge the most important aspect of Ian’s own leadership journey, growth.

“The reality is if you are hiring the perfect match, it is the wrong hire because you need somebody that can grow”.

In association with Deloitte.