My Job: Connecting Ireland's dominance in aircraft leasing with elite football
Miagen manages more than €100bn of global aviation assets.
: Teddy Murphy
: Founder & CEO Miagen
: Consultancy and technology provider founded in 2003, specialising in corporate performance management with a focus on aviation leasing and sports finance
Managing over €100bn of global aviation assets, Miagen has developed a strong position in aircraft leasing through its LeaseGen technology, now used to model one in five of the world’s leased aircraft, in addition to 30% of future aircraft orders from Boeing and Airbus.
The company, founded in 2003, is now applying much of what it learned in aviation into elite football through SportsGen, which enables clubs to model wages, transfers, revenues and different sporting scenarios while navigating increasingly stringent financial fair play rules. Miagen is currently in talks with a number of Serie A clubs about adopting the technology. “We are having a good year, and things have been generally on the up in terms of growth over the past two years,” Teddy Murphy explains. “While the industries we operate in are in good shape, any change in funding or acquisitions can slow things down.”
Having initially founded Miagen as a more efficient alternative for finance teams and boards to make decisions rather than using static spreadsheets, the last 20 years have seen the company advance and grow in tandem with technology’s massive growth over the same period. “The first years in business are difficult for a start-up, nobody wants to invest in somebody they haven’t heard of or seen somebody else benefit from. Getting initial companies on board can be very difficult – and even when you get over that there are always other twists and turns along the way.
Miagen has been through various challenges like recessions and covid, which impact not just on the market but also people’s appetite to invest in change or technology. There are learnings all the way through, and while you do occasionally look back thinking we haven’t done too badly, you are always looking ahead thinking we should be doing better than we are.” Building the company with a team largely composed of accountants, Miagen gives finance teams the ability to model different scenarios in real time, something he describes as being like “a sat-nav for business.”
Rather than building one generic platform for every company, Miagen has developed deep, industry-specific applications of its financial modelling expertise, first in aviation, then ESG and sustainability reporting, and most recently in the professional sport arena. As AI increasingly augments financial judgement, Murphy’s view is that the CFO of the future could evolve into a “Chief Decision Officer.” Miagen is bringing this thinking directly into SportsGen, exploring AI-driven player valuation and scouting insights to support better decision-making in football. “The advent of technology has been incredible, from Miagen’s early days when technology took time and was so difficult to implement. Nowadays, finance and business users are actually defining the technology themselves with AI. I really could say that I have never been as excited as I am now about what it is all going to look like in the next couple of years.”
Like one of those ‘lightbulb moments’ where a chance encounter can inform the future journey of an individual and his company, Miagen’s initial foray into aviation finance appeared somewhat out of the blue after a chance meeting in London where an executive from Etihad Airways delivered a straightforward message: ‘Our CFO said that if you’re serious you’ll be here tomorrow.’ Murphy flew to Abu Dhabi that night, hit the ground running the next morning and embarked on two weeks demonstrating how Miagen’s models could perform better against every other system that Etihad management was considering. “That is the kind of thing that is expected, and not just in places like the Middle East, but here in Ireland as well. Clients want to see who’s running the show, and if the project doesn’t work, is he going to step in and make it work? That is the value of being a smaller player in the market. Trust is a huge factor for people in finance who are naturally prudent, and who are taking a significant risk in choosing you.”
With Ireland now recognised as the global capital of aircraft leasing, the industry traces its roots back to 1975 when entrepreneur Tony Ryan founded Guinness Peat Aviation at Shannon. GPA pioneered the modern operating lease model, shifting global airlines away from capital ownership toward flexible fleet leasing. By the late 1980s, GPA had scaled into the world’s largest commercial aircraft lessor, handling hundreds of planes and ordering directly from major manufacturers. Miagen’s business has become a substantial player in the sector, supporting financial modelling for up to one-in-five of the global leased aircraft fleet, representing €100bn in assets.
“It is a great market, but a tough market that moves fast with a lot of money in it. It also has a lot of players in it and significant investment coming into it. It was a hard sector for us to get into in the beginning, and I remember the first company we approached telling us we didn’t understand the business. So we asked them to give us their company calculations, and to give us a week to work up a plan – which we did successfully.”
Twenty-three years later, Miagen’s models are used by many airline finance teams across aircraft leasing and network planning – running live scenarios to assist decisions rather than static and quickly outdated reports. “We operate in a world of rapid change. Business is now more global, competition more fierce and customers more demanding. To prosper today, management needs state-of-the-art financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting processes and systems that enable rapid, informed and confident decisions.”
Another area Murphy believes has the potential for rapid growth is professional football, with Miagen now offering SportsGen - a financial planning and analysis platform built for mid-tier and elite football clubs. The company estimates that the insights enabled by its software can help clubs to increase match-day revenues by up to 10% by incorporating currently overlooked revenue opportunities in the areas of attendance, pricing and scheduling.
SportsGen allows clubs to model different league finishing positions, assess financial implications, and stay within spending limits to avoid penalties such as point deductions and relegation. Utilising smart forecasting for wages, transfers and operational costs, it helps clubs make informed decisions during transfer windows while staying compliant with financial regulations. “Football is no longer just about success on the pitch; it’s about sustainability off it. Clubs are making high-risk financial decisions on transfer spending, wage structures and operational costs, but often without the right tools. The stakes have never been higher, as financial miscalculations can mean relegation, massive revenue losses and even club extinction.”
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