GEARÓID O’CONNOR

Award Year: 2001

Course: Economics, Politics

Activities: Student’s Union; Belfield FM; University Observer; Literary & Historical Society; Kevin Barry

Cumann

Occupation: EMEA Services Manager, Veracode (Cybersecurity)

Whether working in the warzones of Afghanistan and Cote D’Ivoire, bustling balmy India, or living in orderly Frankfurt it is only with the benefit of hindsight that I can recognise the value of that crucible that helps forge UCD students. I’ve been particularly fortunate that life has taken me - and my fellow classmates - on a wide and diverse path in subsequent years. This has not simply been in the geographical sense but also the professional: from graduate trainee at KPMG UK to today in the topical space of Cybersecurity at US start-up Veracode. And though life has few certainties, I’m unequivocal that many of the skills and experience I have relied upon to date can be traced directly back to that formative time in UCD. And, more specifically, time spent beyond the lecture hall and Library, immersed in the vibrant college life that has always been fostered and on offer to students.

At times there appeared to be as many societies as there were students. The student journalism: founding Belfield FM with Enda Curran (now in Bloomberg Hong Kong) and writing columns, sketching cartoons, and building a website for the University Observer with Juno McEnroe and Daniel McConnell - they all contributed to shaping our abilities and outlook on the careers we cherish today. Even the “clandestine drinking” down the tunnels of UCD probably manifests itself in my CEO’s recent feedback to me that “there is something of the insurgent in you”. Hopefully in these days of “flat whites and lattes” the students still have a touch of that social static electricity that leads them to start a movement or a company. My comfort in front of any audience, dealing with the complimentary to the combative, can be directly traced to my time in the bear pit of Theatre M with the L&H. Few things in project management have ever felt as complicated as the project to set-up a licensed radio station – Belfield FM. My passion for politics remains as undiminished today as it was when I was Chairman of the Kevin Barry Cumman, though I’m somewhat less tribal in my loyalties these days. It seems remarkable that a government would sponsor students as a delegation to talk with Loyalists in Belfast but perhaps in hindsight it was a reflection that the peace process hinged more on those that would inherit it rather than those that signed it.

The most enduring proof of how important that time was for me - and hopefully remains to those who pass through UCD today - is the close friendships and wider network which endures decades later. The talent and energy across those alumni is both humbling and inspiring in the same instance when invited to reflect upon it. With Cardinal John Henry Newman’s words that “Growth is the only evidence of life”, I can reflect on a time where I arguably grew up and stepped into a wider world all the better for it. For that I remain eternally grateful to my alma mater.