'A diverse mix of personalities is what makes a great team'

Deloitte Consulting Partner Emmanuel Adeleke chats with Ashling Cunningham, Chief Information Officer of Irish Water, about the pressures of leading the widescale national utility

Ashling Cunningham, CIO of Irish Water, is strongly committed to strengthening the confidence of fellow women in the workforce.

DELOITTE LEADERSHIP SERIES: Ashling Cunningham, Chief Information Officer, Irish Water

Managing a precious resource & promoting talent diversity

“Water is one of our most precious resources and our continued focus at Irish Water is to ensure we can maintain and sustain that supply into the foreseeable future. My role as CIO gives me the privilege to work for a great organisation and with exceptional teams of people dedicated to this vital resource.” 

Prior to taking up her present position at Irish Water in January this year, Ashling was CIO for Ervia over a seven-year period up to December 2021. 

Responsible for aligning business and technology goals and driving infrastructure optimisation across the organisation while working to create a cohesive programme for innovation, data, security and resilience, she has held leadership positions in blue chip businesses across multiple delivery functions such as technology, facilities and finance.

Ashling’s recent roles have been focused on devising and executing digital strategies to recover, modernise and transform organisations in regulated semi state, manufacturing, services and charitable sectors. She holds a Master of Science (MSc) focused in Management from Trinity College, Dublin and is a Chartered Director with the Institute of Directors.

Emmanuel is a Deloitte Partner in Consulting, leading the delivery of AI and data services across Ireland. In this role, he is responsible for leading, scaling, and delivering services to drive impact for clients across all sectors and industries. Highly experienced in the end-to-end delivery of insights-led change and transformation, Emmanuel has played a lead role across some of Ireland’s most high-profile programmes over the last number of years.

A Business Information Systems graduate from University College Cork, and a board member of the Analytics Institute Ireland, Emmanuel’s experiences span strategy development, delivery of digital and data analytics solutions/ programmes, operating model and change management.

Emmanuel Adeleke, a Deloitte Partner in Consulting, has played a lead role across some of Ireland’s most high-profile programmes in recent years.

Inhabiting a role that, in the past, would have been largely male dominated, Emmanuel wondered how Ashling and her team ensured that diversity is now a key feature in the selecting of talent for positions within the organisation.

“It is an area that Irish Water, as well as many other organisations out there, are very focused on when we look at the pool of people who come in for interviews. We are now leading very diverse groups of people, be they working in our offices or from home, and are very aware of the need for respect and equity in relation to each person’s unique characteristics. We need to be welcoming of ideas and enabling of the opening of doors and opportunities for people who want to step up. We are looking for everybody’s opinion and perspective, even though we may not always agree with it.” 

As CIO for Irish Water, Ashling’s responsibilities are focused across all areas of ICT, employing her established track record implementing state-of-the-art, technology-based business applications to facilitate process and cultural re-engineering.

You can have it all — but not necessarily at the same time 

Emmanuel recalled his own family’s relocation to Ireland over two decades ago, a time when cultural integration was not nearly as advanced as it is in 2022, and inquired if Ashling had perhaps encountered any diversity stumbling blocks in the early stages of her career path.

“I was very fortunate to have worked with fantastic mentors and coaches, and even when I wasn’t aware that I needed them, I had a number of great managers who would have tapped me at certain points to say here’s how this would benefit me. It is about recognising the need to tell someone ‘I think we can help you with this phase’ be that through mentoring or coaching.” 

She highlights public speaking as an area that prevents many people from stepping forward due to a lack of confidence to address a room.

“This is something that I believe should begin in schools because I don’t believe you are ever too young to be able to stand up and speak in front of your fellow students. I have seen how this lack of confidence has held people back, and is an area we should invest more focus on.” 

Looking back at her own career journey, Ashling is guided by a mantra that says “you can have it all, but you can’t have it all at the same time”. People need to know when to step out — be it training, family, children or whatever — as was the case when she did it to have twins, eight years ago.

“The key is having the confidence to step back in again, and that is where mentoring and coaching can help. When I stepped out myself, I decided to meet up for a coffee with the person who assumed responsibility for the role during my maternity leave, allowing me keep a hand in, stay in touch, with the result that it wasn’t so much of a hill to climb when I eventually returned to the workplace.” 

Enabling and supporting women to return to the workplace following maternity leave is also a key focus at Deloitte Ireland, with a specially designed programme offering six-month paid placements supported by training, coaching support and a peer network to help with a successful transition.

Personal experience has taught Ashling not to be limited by the fear of making mistakes: “It is often the old story of ‘you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs’ — sometimes mistakes are what help you to grow and develop through the lesson learnt.” 

Building strong teams to create success  

Looking to the prospects for future generations, including the potential careers of his own children, Emmanuel was interested in what learnings or guidance Ashling would impart to the graduates of the future, not just within the business world, but the country in general.

“I believe networking is key, partly because it can be quite lonely sometimes on the branch of that tree. Certainly networking and talking is an advantage women in business are aware of, and it should not be something anyone is afraid to do. Added to that is the ability to be bold or brave — both of which will only come about from having confidence.”

She points to the old cliché of a man looking at a job advert and saying ‘I can do that’ — even if his CV skill set is lacking — while a woman might have said ‘I could never do that’, through lack of confidence.

“Women need to be empowered to go for particular roles, something I do on a regular basis through working with them on screening, interviews and general coaching around that area.” Ashling does point to an increase of females in certain engineering courses, and looks to the further promotion and encouragement of their participation.

“If we are advertising a particular role, we do need to have a gender balance — and an attitude of ‘if not, why not?’ Of course there is an element of needing to take the chance, take the risk. It is all about the team — I build strong teams, they create the success — my job is to orchestrate it.” 

Ashling suggests that effective leadership is about understanding the various strengths of different people and how best to position them within teams to the greatest possible effect: “We in Irish Water spend a lot of time looking at capabilities that we require, and I am a great believer in bringing together a diverse mix of personalities — because that is what makes a great team. A big key is how do we attract those talented people to come and work for an organisation like Irish Water when there are so many other organisations out there looking for similar skills.” 

The job market in technology has and continues to be very competitive in terms of the fight for talent. Irish Water’s organisation offers a unique opportunity for someone to work and contribute to the sustainability of Ireland’s future. To achieve this, there is a greater focus on their intern and graduate programmes to allow Irish Water to develop an effective talent pipeline across all disciplines to support the great work that is being done at all levels across the business. 

Irish Water offer roles across a wide and exciting range of challenges in an environment where we continue to prioritise, attract and retain our talent streams. They are, and remain committed to, the continuous development of employees. 

Deloitte Ireland encourage people to bring their true self to work and create their own path. As well as a challenging and meaningful work environment, Deloitte also offers a range of leave options to support people through the various stages of their lives — from maternity, adoption and surrogacy leave to volunteering leave and 'time out' to explore other interests.

They currently have vacancies for experienced hires across all business units and their newly launched 2023 Graduate Programme. Find out more at   Deloitte.ie/Careers.