Home Is Where The Heart Is For PwC’s New Head

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Home is Where the Heart (of excellence) is, says PwC’s New Head of Northern Ireland

Cat McCusker Regional Market Leader at PwC Northern Ireland.

PwC Partner, Cat McCusker, has spent her career helping organisations across the world to transform. As PwC’s new Northern Ireland Regional Market Leader, local woman Cat is focused on bringing this expertise, learning, and passion to the place she calls home. Here, she explains what NI means to her, and how she’s determined to support NI to become a destination for excellence.

The thing that has struck me most, in my new role, is how important Northern Ireland is to the people who call it home.

Having spent many years with PwC, working across the world, leading PwC NI is one of my proudest achievements. And that pride in NI has been reflected everywhere I look.

As a people, we are proud of who we are, of what we have done, of what we can do - and most importantly - what we still want to achieve. And we are not shy about saying it.

Since taking up my post almost six months ago, I’ve had countless conversations with colleagues, with local business owners, with public sector leaders, with Higher and Further Education leaders, political and public figures; and the narrative is the same - Northern Ireland can and should be a destination for excellence, in skills, in innovation, in technology, in tourism - the list goes on.

The hunger to drive Northern Ireland forward, and to achieve all that it has the potential to, is palpable. And I am committed to supporting that drive. Despite the many challenges we’re all facing at present, both locally and globally, I believe that Northern Ireland has enormous economic potential that’s just waiting to be unlocked.

I’m really excited by the potential we have to combine the passion I am seeing, with the opportunities that exist, particularly around the skills agenda, and net zero transition.

In my view, one of the most effective ways to accelerate our economic growth is through increased investment in businessled training, and reskilling initiatives; to support the areas which will have the greatest, long-term impact on our productivity, such as AI, technology and green sustainability.

And to that end, I believe we need to grasp the opportunity to reimagine the education sector here. I’m privileged to be PwC UK’s Education Consulting Sector and, with that hat on, it feels to me that NI is perfectly placed to innovate.

We already have a dynamic and engaged education sector, a strong record in academic excellence, and strong links with

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“Despite the many challenges we’re all facing at present, both locally and globally, I believe that Northern Ireland has enormous economic potential that’s just waiting to be unlocked.”

the business community. Our next step should be to harness those strengths to invest in our future, through the leaders of tomorrow.

I’m proud to say that PwC NI already employs around 3,700 people in our Merchant Square office in Belfast city centre. I want to continue to attract new talent into the NI labour market, to bring home some of the talent we lose through limited university places, and attractive lifestyle choices elsewhere.

But I also want to support local businesses to offer, train, and attract the right skills for increased productivity in NI, and to ensure that every teenager leaves school here with the right skills, experience and qualifications to both want to stay in NI, and to drive our economy forward by doing so.

And while investment in our skills agenda is important, I also believe it’s crucial that we share our story of excellence; of pride, drive and determination, in a much more proactive and positive way.

Northern Ireland is already widely recognised as a business focused region. Belfast has been ranked the second most successful city after London in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) projects from the US, and has over 1,100 international companies investing here.

Indeed, the Belfast Region City Deal is further evidence of our existing excellence and ‘can do’ attitude which makes us so unique. The City Deal is a catalyst for business growth through research and development, with critical investment in five universityled innovation and research centres already in the pipeline.

In my view, the time is now for NI.

We emanate excellence in all that we do, and we aren’t finished yet. More and more I am hearing, and seeing the need for the private and public sectors here to work collaboratively and this - thankfully - is beginning to happen. But we also need to support and work with our valuable community, voluntary and charity sectors who have done so much to support NI through many of its welldocumented challenges, not least of all during the recent pandemic and current cost of living crisis.

As a business leader I am keen for businesses here to come together to drive for the economic success of NI. We need to work alongside the government and other stakeholders to drive sustainable change for NI through meaningful collaboration. Only then can we realise our true potential and make NI the go to destination for people, skills and investment.

Together we must enable the NI Executive’s 10x economic report to bear fruit, we need to capitalise on our unique trading position, harness our excellence in fintech, regtech, pharmtech, agri-business and manufacturing, and accelerate our transition to green skills and green jobs.

There’s much to be done. But it’s true to say in NI we love a challenge, and in my opinion, there are no better people to meet it head on.

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Industry leaders gather for skills discussion

Kirsty McManus, National Director at the Institute of Directors Northern Ireland (IoDNI) has called for greater collaboration between further and higher education institutions and the business community here in order to achieve the region’s economic goals.

The remarks from the local business leader were made at a roundtable event hosted by the IoDNI and The Open University.

A number of key figures from the trade and business community took part in the discussion which was held in collaboration with The Open University in the city centre’s Merchant Hotel. Jackie Henry, Partner at Deloitte; Mary Meehan, Deputy Chief at Manufacturing NI; MarieThérèse McGivern, Non-Executive Director; Carol Fitzsimmons, CEO, Young Enterprise NI and Dr. Lynsey Quinn of The Open University, were all involved in the debate which looked at the direction of skills in Northern Ireland as well as how to open opportunities within this area.

Each of the contributors were asked what could be done to address Northern Ireland’s historic skills shortages and while it was clear no one intervention would remedy the situation overnight, Kirsty McManus suggested that “strategic and expertly planned collaboration would help maximize the true potential of the local economy and a childcare strategy would open up greater opportunities.”

Answering the same question Dr. Lynsey Quinn, Senior Skills and Partnerships Manager with The Open University in Ireland put forward the case for a greater focus on employability. “The future workforce is reliant on emerging talent having a robust sense of selfleadership; critical thinking and decision-making abilities and strong interpersonal skills in order to meet the demands and opportunities of an ever-evolving digital world. We need to see greater emphasis on lifelong learning and encouraging the workforce to not lose an appetite to learn but to want to develop their skills at all stages of their careers and ensure the structures are in place in workplaces to allow the workforce to do so.

“Each of today’s contributors has brought new and exciting ideas to the table and it is encouraging to hear that these business leaders want to work in closer partnership with education providers, such as The Open University, to meet their upskilling and reskilling needs and maintaining a culture of learning and development within their respective organisations.”

Rounding off the discussion, Kirsty McManus reaffirmed the IoD’s position that it would continue to act as an intermediary between the business community and further and higher education outlets to tackle employers’ concerns around skills and protect work done to date through the existing Skills Strategy.

“Change best comes about through dialogue and partnership, so this event has been a welcome first step for these organisations to come together and focus on the skills they need to fulfill their growth ambitions.

“It is positive that all partners have agreed to continue this discussion and we hope that by bringing this group of business leaders together we have created a forum which, in the absence of a functioning executive, will continue to put pressure on decision makers not to renege on commitments already made in the existing Northern Ireland Skills Strategy and resource and endorse this even further.”

“Thanks must go to all of our contributors for taking the time to engage with this event and for sharing their ideas so enthusiastically.”

Skills policy briefing session ‘Opening Opportunities - discussing the direction of skills in Northern Ireland’ hosted in partnership by The Open University and The IoD. Pictured L-R is Jackie Henry, Deloitte; Dr. Lynsey Quinn, The Open University; Kirsty McManus, IoDNI; Mary Meehan, Manufacturing NI and Maire-Therese McGivern, NED.

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