Eastern links key to future success

Liam Casey saw a potential gap in a rapidly developing market. Now the Cork-born entrepreneur employs 1,200 people across the globe, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

PCH is to say the least, an unusual company and its Cork-born founder, Liam Casey, a businessman who has come from relative obscurity to carve out a large space for himself as a key link in the chain between leading Western brands and the new workshop of the world in east Asia, in barely half a decade.

The company, which is based both in Cork and in the city of Shenzhen in southern China, is credited with having reshaped the linkages between Chinese manufacturers and Western customers — dramatically shortening the supply chain.