DIVERSITY Fionnuala Meehan


VICE PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE MARKETING SOLUTIONS, EMEA, HEAD OF GOOGLE IRELAND


As Vice President of Google Marketing Solutions, EMEA, Fionnuala Meehan leads a team of over 600 people. She was recently appointed Head of Google in Ireland and leads the Dublin site which employs nearly 7,000 people. She joined Google in 2005 and rose through a number of roles including Director of EMEA Ad Operations in 2010 and Director of EMEA SMB Sales in 2015. Fionnuala also chairs the Google Education Committee in Ireland which is focused on identifying initiatives which will help Ireland’s young people develop skills for the digital age. She has led Google’s three-year partnership


programme with Trinity


College which aims to affect a significant long-term change


in STEM education


through a range of innovative interventions focused on the second level system. Fionnuala spent 18 months as chair of the EMEA women@google group, which represents approximately 20 offices across EMEA, and aims to support and encourage women working in the Digital and ICT sectors.


Where we say we are building technology for everyone, diversity is hugely important. It’s hugely important to have a workforce that’s made up, not


women, but people from different because


we to be


just of men and socio-


economic backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds, workforce


need our fully representative of


society. That’s not only a good thing to do, it’s sound business because it means your products will really stick with a larger amount of people.


THE TONE FROM THE TOP What’s been more interesting for me over the past few years is the focus on inclusion. In the early days, workforce


it was about hiring a diverse and making sure


it was


representative. But that’s only where it starts, you need to build an inclusive working environment. If you’re going to hire and retain a diverse workforce you need to think about inclusive leadership. It’s the small but significant things you do every day, the type of culture that you build, what we call ‘the tone from the top’. It’s a different set of things that you need to do, it’s less easy to measure but it means that individuals in a diverse


CULTURAL MELTING POT I think Ireland is a very open society, we welcome a lot of different cultures and they sit side by side with indigenous Irish. I see people in work getting very excited about getting Irish citizenship, it doesn’t mean they are giving up what they love, they are proud to become an Irish citizen. At the Dublin office in particular we pride ourselves on our diversity, we have over 60 nationalities, 70 languages and we service over 100 markets. That’s hard to compare to across even Google’s offices. It feels like a cultural melting pot for those who visit from the west coast. I think Ireland is doing pretty well with


regard to female leaders, look across the tech sector in Ireland: Sinéad McSweeney (MD, Twitter Ireland), Anne O’Leary and many other female leaders of the multinationals located here. There’s a pretty good cohort and a good network too.


16 INNOVATION IRELAN REVIEW


team can feel that


they can bring their


backgrounds to work in a way that allows them to be fulfilled.


SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH As an advocate, I think you need to talk about how you have made it work for yourself. I often talk about the fact that my husband is a lead parent and for the past 19 years has been the


primary person doing the


childrearing and that has enabled me to be where I am today. In some instances, both people in the partnership work, there isn’t a cookie cutter approach and I think it’s good for people to see that. It’s talking in a practical way about the parts that have worked, the parts that have been challenging. It’s important to advocate and spend time


supporting programmes, whether it’s mentoring sponsorship programmes in the company, or the 30% Club. The other thing that’s really important is


to do your job and do it well. You can advocate for this, that and the other, but having so many women just doing big jobs really well makes it


normal. That’s


important from a role model point of view that people see that it’s not outlandish for me to do this job.


Image: The Sunday Business Post


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