Group Chief Executive, Bank of Ireland Group
#ChooseToChallenge International Women's Day event for Bank of Ireland Colleagues
We were joined on International Women's day by International football stars Stephanie Roche and Áine O'Gorman and by Bank of Ireland Group CFO Myles O'Grady for a wide-ranging chat about the world of equality seen through the lens of sport. Here are some of the highlights...
About Myles O'grady
Myles O'Grady, Group Chief Executive of Bank of Ireland, has commented on the potential impact of U.S. trade tariffs on the Irish economy. In March 2025, he stated that while there is a risk from trade tariffs, Ireland entered that situation from a "position of strength," noting that Ireland exports about 18% to the U.S. He also expressed confidence in Taoiseach Micheál Martin's ability to highlight the strong relationship between Ireland and the U.S. during a meeting at the White House. In February 2025, O'Grady acknowledged that it would be "naive not to recognize that there is a risk from trade tariffs," but emphasized the broader stability and resilience of the Irish economy, which he said is expected to grow about 12% over the next three years, supported by government spending, business sentiment, and consumer spending. O'Grady has also discussed Bank of Ireland's financial performance and outlook. In February 2025, he reported strong full-year 2024 results with profits of 1.9 billion euros, and set a target to keep the bank's cost base in the region of 2 billion euros over the next three years. He has stated that the bank expects to achieve returns of 15% over the next number of years, supported by a concentrated and growing Irish market. On the topic of commercial real estate, O'Grady has expressed optimism for high-quality office space in good locations, while noting that areas in less favorable locations or condition are vulnerable. He has also highlighted the demand for new homes in Ireland, stating that the bank is funding about 18,000 homes being built against an annual demand of about 35,000.
Transcript (6 segments)
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Host0:00
Hello and a very warm welcome to this morning's event. Choose to Challenge is the theme of this year's International Women's Day, and we're delighted to bring you some of Ireland's greatest international soccer players. We are delighted to be joined by Stephanie Roach and Anya O'Goalman, as well as from Myles O'Grady, Chief Financial Officer of the Bank of Ireland. But I think definitely a perception of women talking about sports, particularly obviously football for myself, I think is changing. People do tend to even on Twitter, like I'm a Manchester United fan and I often go on and have quite a few rants about my United, and I think a lot of you know other fans can relate to me and talk about football, whereas before in the past I think it would have been kind of like, 'She's a woman, what's she talking about?' you know. So I definitely think that the perception, as I said before, is changing on women having an opinion on sport, and I think that's because we're seeing more women getting involved, more women being exposed in the media. It's not unusual now to hear female commentators, female voices, and seeing kind of female pundits in the studio as well. So hopefully long may continue, but I do think as I said times are changing. And again to use the word again, I think perceptions are changing of women and sports. And yeah, I think it's all about exposure and about creating equal opportunity, that the women's game can get the exposure and like you say, the perception of the game can be changed. And I think like Steph related to earlier, it's maybe when people haven't seen the game, and we spoke to the high school level, like Steph's got that scoring goal as a turning point to show the skill level and the technical ability of female footballers as well. So big turning points I think with getting sponsors on board, like the likes of Bank of Ireland coming on board with the Women's National League, that is really important for our game that we have that platform. I think it's about then creating equal opportunity so you're getting the visibility, and like all the game shown, and the World Cup games maybe except for the Ukraine games I had to leave that one off, I wouldn't mind.
Yeah, and I think the breakthrough moment really for me is going to be qualifying for that major tournament. I think success obviously breeds success as well in that regard, and builds the following as well. But I think it's just to build momentum off the 20 by 20 campaign, or RTÉ showing all their matches. And I know people in the FAI do a lot of work, but then at the end of the day it comes back to us as players that we maintain our standards, that we portray ourselves in a professional manner, and we're the ones that have to go out and perform and make it a good game and make sure we're successful as well to keep that audience engaged, I suppose. So yeah, then the next big step, I think the players are there now, the players are coming through the ranks, and there's a good set of management set up, good set up at the international level as well. So the stage is set, and it's just a great performance and get the results and go on to the next level of qualifying for our first ever major tournament. I like to think that I have a decent insight into the game. As I said, I do my research, I think I have a good knowledge of the game. So it just comes back to a lot of the times the comments you get isn't actually disagreeing with your opinion, it's disagreeing with the fact that you're a female talking in the men's game. And as I said, it goes back there. If it's not, I could have times where I've had a really good show and I'll come off and I'm like, 'That went really well, I really enjoyed that, I got my points across well, things that I said before the game happened through the game, so it makes you look good.' And then you'll come off and go on your Twitter page and someone was saying, 'Jesus, what is she, where and who does she think she is?' and others there's something like that. So it's almost like you feel at times you can't win, you know that kind of way. You can get everything right and things feel good, and you're always going to get that one idiot. And don't get me wrong, it usually is just one or two, it's not the majority of people. The majority of people are quite supportive and usually quite positive with their feedback. But yeah, it can be difficult, particularly as I said, I've no problem with anybody disagreeing with my opinion. But when it comes down to making it about my gender, I think that's where it hits hard, you know. But Miles, can I come to you now? How important is it that a business which is doing things in the right way can actually feel as though it has permission to go and encourage sporting organizations who might be still a little bit behind the curve?
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Myles O'grady5:00
Sure, thanks Robin. And good morning to everyone who's partaking in this. I'm very happy and somewhat privileged, I have to say, to be sharing the panel with Stephanie and Robin. It's lovely to be here this morning. You know, I think at the heart of your question, Robin, is substance over form, and that's really what we're talking about here. It's not enough for a corporate just to put money into something; there has to be much more behind that. And you know, I was listening to Robin and Stephanie and I was thinking about in the broad sense the role of a team, whether that's football or whether it's banking, the logic is the same. You mean that a collection of diverse people with different skills, different experience, and even a different outlook makes a powerful team. And I'm pretty sure Stephanie and Anya wouldn't want to play with 10 players who are the same as them. They understand the benefit of different skills coming together, and of course gender is at the heart of that. And so as a broad comment, what I would like to say is that when I think about diversity, aside from it being utterly outrageous to treat anyone whether it's based on gender, identity, culture, or authenticity, putting that aside, we also know that the more diverse our people are, the better outcomes we have both for our employees and indeed for our customers. So that's the broad answer. So I am very pleased and I also welcome the challenge to be the Bank of Ireland sponsor for gender balance. I take it very seriously, and I want to do something with it. I want to build on the success we've had but go further. Now part of that...
Is the coming on as an associate sponsor for the League of Ireland, covering both men's divisions and the Women's National League as well. And much of that role goes beyond just the game; it's around our role in the community. And as a part of that, it's more than a club initiative, which is working with delivering social programs, particularly for disadvantaged communities. And so if I come back to, I was listening to Stephanie mentioned, she talked about perception and opening eyes, and it's not acceptable for us not to perceive the gender balance, and it's not acceptable for us not to have our eyes open. And I think about also on you talk about building momentum, and that's really important too, because momentum is where we'll get across the line, not just making steps, not just making small changes, but significant improvement. And there's many ways of thinking about this, Robin, but in essence, we're out there by saying we have a 50-50 gender balance target, we're happy to be judged on that. And secondly, we're publishing our gender pay gap report, so regardless of what level you are in the company, how do our female colleagues compare to male colleagues on pay. And by putting those two metrics out there, I think we're hopefully showing our integrity and the substance that we want to make significant progress, and we're happy to be judged and assessed against that.
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Anya O'Goalman8:16
And we're happy to be judged and assessed against that. I know for me, my turning point was when my dad brought me to Richmond Park and I saw Olivia O'Toole playing and score a goal. That's when I realized I could live the dream of playing for Ireland. And the exposure the game is getting there, but I'm going to echo what Steph says. Look, it's all about enjoying your game and enjoying where you're playing. Just fall in love with the game. And I think following, finding that love for the game is really important, and believe in yourself the two of you.
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Host8:40
Throughout this morning have been great. Your careers, you've been great. Long may that continue as well. Keep on inspiring us, keep on inspiring our daughters and young girls to play. Miles, to you as well, thanks. To Bank of Ireland for being there, for helping to build that support. And by supporting the domestic game, by supporting clubs, that's all going to be to the good as well. It's been an absolute pleasure to have all three of you on to talk to us today. Thanks to everybody for coming and joining us. We're out of time now. Honestly, we could have spoken for the rest of the day about this. And let's make sure that we use International Women's Day as the first of the next 364 days where we actually put women's sport in the right place where it should be, on equal parity of esteem with the men's game. So to Stephanie, to Anya, and to Miles, and to everybody who has joined us here this morning, thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day.