Entrepreneur enjoys a new lease of life thanks to his career pivot

Ronan Corrigan is an innovative and hugely successful entrepreneur, but he struggled in 9-to-5 jobs; he reflects on his career decisions

Entrepreneur Ronan Corrigan says that he enjoys the buzz of creating and developing a business. His first locum medical staffing solutions business Global Medics, developed with business partner Justyn Randall, was acquired by global recruitment giant Impellum Group for €40m+ in 2015.

Once upon a time, back in the olden days, instances of career ‘pivots’ would have been unusual. Nowadays, they are increasingly becoming the ‘new normal’.  

There are many reasons for people to redirect their careers. Two people who have radically altered direction tell their stories. 

Ronan's journey into entrepreneurship 

Ronan Corrigan, 47, lives with his family in Dun Laoghaire. His career journey began on a bumpy road, failed college exams, a relocation to London and for a while, things got even bumpier. 

Then, following a series of dead-end jobs that included hospital security guard and lift operator on a construction site, his pivot point came when met Justyn Randall in a nightclub and their conversation turned to entrepreneurship and opportunity. 

Together, they founded and scaled Global Medics, which provided permanent and locum medical staffing solutions and managed services to clients and doctors all over the world. They built a solid and sustainable business and then sold it to the global recruitment giant, Impellum Group, for £37 million in 2015.

A sport and fitness enthusiast, when not spending time with his family or building new businesses, Corrigan can be found watching West Ham United, cycling, running, golfing, or playing football, padel or tennis and rarely sitting still.

Ronan Corrigan, left, dates his hugely successful journey into entrepreneurship back to a chance meeting with Justyn Randall. Together they founded and scaled Global Medics, which provided permanent and locum medical staffing solutions and managed services to clients and doctors all over the world. For their first venture together, they built a recruitment business together and then sold it to global recruitment giant Impellum Group for £37 million in 2015.

What are you up to these days? 

Many things, two are particularly exciting. I’m an investor in Opogo, an online platform for substitute teachers, both for managing placements and for doing courses online, which greatly improves retention rates for substitute teachers.

In the UK market over 600 schools are live on our platform on a daily basis and we are in nearly another hundred schools in Florida. We won’t do Ireland, yet at least, but are planning to expand in the UK. We’ve just won a new contract for Manchester, and we will continue to push in Florida, hopefully up to around 300 schools there by the end of 2026.

We’ve built a unique service. There’s the booking platform where we take away all the headaches and not just from the principal. If a teacher knows she won’t be in tomorrow, she can put the details on the platform and we can fill the gap in seconds. 

We also take all the administration of the compliance and the payroll, we do all the heavy lifting, but the school has full transparency on costs and can pull information and reports from the platform in any template needed. It’s like Uber for teachers.

A second business is called Rosata, which I started after selling the other one. We provide Doctor or Locums, and our focus is purely for the HSE and NHS in Northern Ireland. 

Your career. Start at the beginning? 

I failed college in Ireland, in Carlow RTC, and I ended up in England. I took any job that was going, one of which was as a security guard in a psychiatric hospital. I could tell a lot of stories about that, but probably shouldn’t. I decided to leave when it started to get a bit dangerous. I was sent out to search for a patient who had escaped the building in black dark at two or three in the morning and was wandering around the grounds of the hospital. 

I realised that this wasn’t worth £1.20 an hour and I asked for a move. The company sent me to a building site where I spent three months going up and down in a lift, asking builders what floor they wanted to get off at. I don’t know which job was worse to be honest.

But you found your way out. How? 

I still knew a bit about computers from college, not coding, just applications, and I got a job working for a company near Heathrow Airport as a stock controller. I started to learn a lot more about IT in business. 

As chance would have it, I met Justin in a nightclub through a mutual friend and we discussed an idea for a recruitment business and luckily, we picked doctors for our focus. That was the origin of the business, Global Medics. We grew it from the ground up, from nothing, and ended up with offices in Ireland, England, Australia, New Zealand, France, South Africa, Canada. We subsequently sold that in 2015 for over €40 million. 

Describe your attitude to risk?

I have this thing about life being short and try get the best out of every single day. I’m not built for nine-to-five jobs. I wouldn’t last; my brain wouldn’t handle it. I need some sort of excitement every day, a buzz. The recruitment business gave me that. It wasn’t about the money; if you make it just about the money, you are not going to be successful. It’s about the buzz, about not going home until we’d found a doctor for that hospital the following morning. The money came because that buzz made us develop the best service around.

Was there a single moment that convinced you to make the change?

It wasn’t something I’d previously thought about. When I look back now, it was about valuing myself differently than the position I was in. I had a lot of drive and ambition and a brain that spun and I needed something that would bring me satisfaction. It was something I needed to do, and it brought me back to Ireland to set up the Irish operation which turned out to be the most successful in the group. 

Did financial concerns during your career pivot cause any sleepless nights? 

Not really. I had a bit of cash, nothing major, just some savings. But when we came up with our idea, we persuaded some friends to lend us around eighty-thousand pounds to start the business. We knew then that we were safe for about four or five months, and I always knew I could go back to being a security guard if it failed. I say this to people in jobs and professions; if you are not waking up in the morning passionate about what you do – then take the chance, try it. You can always fall back to your career. I didn’t have a career, so I’d no choice. I had to make it work.

Do you recruit staff that possess your own traits and skillsets? 

One hundred per cent. We want people that are like us in our twenties, people with drive and passion. We want people to earn what they want to earn working for us. Lots of our people have left to start up on their own and have been successful, and good luck to them for doing it. It doesn’t affect us, because we always move on to another challenge and try to stay ahead.

Were there ever any doubts, any ‘imposter syndrome'? 

No. I never had any doubts. I just focused on building a business. It was all new to me and was all just about being successful, about being where I wanted to be. It was only when we sold it and looked back, I thought, ‘Wow, that was an amazing journey! Myself and my business partner, Justyn, probably don’t pat each other on the back enough for what we achieved. We just move on. 

A close friend is a successful solicitor, but is now considering a pivot to interior designer. Advise him.

The fact that the thought has entered their head means that they should give up what they are doing. If that thought keeps coming, then they need to just try it. The more time you spend thinking about it, the less inclined you are to do it; you’ll start to put barriers in front of yourself and then you’ll never know. Try it. If it doesn’t work, go back to being a solicitor. I’ve a friend who has spent the last twenty years trying to leave his job but can’t do it. Don’t dwell on failure. Believe in yourself.