Takeaways from Liam Nagle’s boardroom journey: Rewinding the week that was

Liam Nagle never went to college. “Couldn’t afford it,” he says without fuss. 

Instead, he built his career from the ground up – starting at Golden Vale Co-Op in his teens, before joining Apple in Cork in 1983 as one of its first 200 employees. From there, he travelled to California and Singapore, managed operations at Intel during its explosive Pentium years, and later led divisions at Nortel and Bookham through both the dot-com boom and bust.

From tech and multinationals, Nagle took a career pivot into the nuanced world of family business. 

Sicon, the holding company of the Sisk Group, the construction giant, was seeking an executive chair for its non-construction activities. Nagle applied, got the job, and broadened the construction giant’s imprint into healthcare. In 2008, he was appointed the group’s first CEO, just as the Celtic Tiger collapsed.

In 2015, after the sudden death of founder Eddie Haughey (Lord Ballyedmond), the Haughey family sought a new leader for Norbrook Laboratories, the global veterinary pharmaceutical business in Newry, Co Down. Nagle was chosen.

He is the non-exec chair of the business, having stepped down as CEO two years ago. 

Together, these experiences have given Nagle a unique vantage point. He has been a CEO, a chair, and a non-executive director. He has led in good times and bad, and sat on both sides of the boardroom table.

A longstanding member of the Institute of Directors Ireland, he sat down with me recently to discuss his journey and the lessons he learned from the various boardrooms he has sat in. The full interview is available here, outside the paywall, but here are five key lessons from Liam Nagle’s journey.

Nagle is adamant that leadership is about people before it is about numbers. Across every role, from his early years at Apple to his decade at Norbrook, he has invested in talent, upskilling, and performance.

“If there’s a common theme from my perspective, it’s about people,” he reflects. “Always have lots of good people around you, develop those people, manage performance.”

The way Nagle sees it, leadership means creating an environment where others can succeed. It means constant renewal, upgrading skills, and having the courage to make changes when necessary. Strategy may set direction, but without the right people, it goes nowhere.

Corporate culture is often treated as a slogan, but Nagle insists it is lived through behaviour.

“People talk about culture, and culture is hugely important, but to have a good culture, you have to know what your values are. The behaviours you expect, but also the behaviours that you don’t expect, are what support your culture or not, and that has to start not just with the executive, but with the board,” he says.

He points to directors who modelled the right approach — such as the late Sir Ian Gibson, who spoke sparingly but always with weight. Contrast that, he says, with those who treated meetings as accounting exercises, checking sums with a calculator instead of engaging with strategy or values.

For Nagle, culture flows down from the board. If directors embody the right values, the organisation follows.

He points to a conversation he had with George Sisk: “We were sitting in the office one day talking, and he said, ‘Liam, remember you’re building a business for my grandchildren’, so, if you reflect on that, it’s  a phenomenal, huge responsibility to be given.”

In Nagle’s experience, the most effective boards are those built on trust and genuine relationships. That requires more than turning up for scheduled meetings and reviewing PowerPoint packs.

“It is essential to have good communication and engagement between the board and the executive,” he says. “You do that by talking to people regularly. It’s about communication. It’s about spending time together.”

And chairs, in particular, must lead differently.

“The CEO leads from the front, typically. The chair has to lead from behind. You can’t be the first person to comment on a particular topic at the board. Let the rest of the room talk about it, and encourage that,” he says.

Good boards, he believes, are collegial, curious, and supportive without being passive. Above all, they trust one another — and that trust is earned through time and openness.

Succession, Nagle argues, is one of the board’s most vital responsibilities. It requires a long view: not just replacing people, but anticipating the skills the organisation will need years from now.

“Your typical succession process with the executives is every year you look at it and you look at who’s coming through,” he explains. “In terms of board succession… the key is doing the basics right, your skills matrix and assessing what the board will need in the next 10 years, not what you needed in the past,” he says.

Cultural fit is as important as expertise. “You can almost tell when you meet the person whether they’re going to fit into the culture and fit into the team,” he notes.

Not everything in business runs smoothly, and Nagle has been in tech businesses during the dot-com crash and construction during the financial crisis. His philosophy is that issues must be surfaced early, shared openly, and addressed with preparation and honesty.

“You have to set an expectation of your executive for no surprises, good or bad. Give the board time if there’s an issue. The sooner we know about it, the better we can work together on it,” he says.

When hard conversations are required, they should focus on solving problems rather than blaming individuals.

“You need to make sure you’re properly prepared, you’ve got the data, you’ve understood what the issue is… You’re not going in there in an accusatory manner; you’re going in there with, ‘Look, here’s the problem. How are we going to solve it?’ … Don’t confront the person, confront the issue.”

Looking back on his varied career, Nagle puts it simply: “I have no regrets. I tell people I have been phenomenally lucky to have worked in great companies with great people.”

Power Capital was among the first Irish companies to believe in solar energy. On Wednesday, it emerged as a major winner in the State’s latest auction for price supports, with seven projects gaining a route to market. In a detailed interview, its chief executive Justin Brown told Alice how much convincing it took to get the industry off the ground – and how he will finance these new assets.

The Dublin-headquartered agricultural services Origin Enterprises PLC had preliminary annual results on Wednesday, showing that its diversification strategy is on track. After interviewing Origin’s CEO Sean Coyle last month, Thomas analysed the latest figures and concluded that in the absence of stock market recognition for its progress, the company looks like an increasingly attractive acquisition target.

As the US Federal Reserve is suspended to a court decision over President Donald Trump’s decision to fire one of its governors, Lisa Cook, Constantin took a deep dive into the history of the Fed. The US Central Bank’s reputation for independence is more illusion than fact, he explained.

We’ve just started a new podcast series, Sports Matters, for which I first interviewed the renowned boxing coach Billy Walsh. He spoke about transforming lives through sport, the cost of high standards, and what the boardroom can learn from the dressing room – read or listen.