Talk the Talk

Steve Cowman, chief executive of waste management company Greenstar, talks to David Clerkin.

You took over at Greenstar in November, but you’ve no background in waste. Why did you take the job?

My background is in electrical engineering. I ran the General Instruments plant in Cork and also worked for Volex and GE. NTR (Greenstar’s parent) wanted somebody coming from a multinational corporate environment, similar to our main customers. Our major customers are big pharmaceuticals and other multinationals like Intel. Greenstar has gone from a start-up to a business with €80 million turnover and 500 employees in four years. It’s big, but we want to be bigger. We plan to double the business in three years.