By Declan O’Kelly

The Dean of University College Dublin Smurfit Business School, Professor Tom Begley, visited New York in early October for two reasons: to attend the annual UCD Smurfit Dinner at the Metropolitan Club and to present his 10-year plan for the school to the North American Advisory Board.

A few weeks before, the Irish advisory board (like its American counterpart, a who’s who in the business world) welcomed the plan, saying it “certainly didn’t lack ambition.” William Feather, American author and publisher, once said, “The tragedy is that so many have ambition and so few have ability.” UCD Smurfit School has the luxury of saying that their man lacks neither of these qualities, and has entrusted him to make UCD Smurfit the world-class business school modern Ireland deserves.

Begley’s strategic business plan has identified three main areas of focus: Global Finance, Technology and Innovation and Work and Organizations. “The first thing is that the top schools in academia are all great research schools, they generate knowledge,” said Prof. Begley as he sipped sparkling water at Fitzpatrick’s Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Affable, soft-spoken and slim, he has an academic air about him that disappears when he smiles.

“One of the things we are doing is hiring ten chaired professors before September 2007 as an initial step in our drive to become highly research productive.” A Global Finance academy will be established to increase research and service the needs of The International Financial Services Center (IFSC) in Dublin. “We will help companies at the IFSC and elsewhere to develop skills to manage funds, process transactions, make trades and track them – competing with London and New York in niche areas.” Researchers would also focus on work and organization, looking at methods on how to best manage and develop the workforce.

The plan also focuses on developing the entrepreneurial skills in the Technology and Innovation sector. “It is a hell of a challenge to try and turn scientific advances into product on the shelves for consumers. We would be sensitizing the scientist to the business dimensions of what they are doing. We would like to be able to give scientists some understanding of how to raise funds, how to create a business plan, how to create management and time horizons, and if they have some terrific idea that they think could lead to a project, what steps are needed to develop it.”

Plans are also afoot to launch a new Center of Executive Education, which would spare Irish executives from having to go abroad to attain this level of qualification. “Top schools also have substantial executive education capability, and we have underdeveloped that in recent years. We have the go-ahead from the UCD President [Hugh Brady] to engage in substantially increasing our activity in executive education. We are in the early stages, we have just hired an executive director [for the executive academy] and we are starting to offer programs in the area.”

Several senior directorial positions will be created to further develop the MBA program. “We would certainly continue to invest in that simply because it is the one that is ranked all the time. If you talk to the dean of any business school, as much as they do not like the rankings, we ignore them at our peril.” In the latest MBA school rankings by The Economist, the UCD Smurfit School was placed amongst the top 13 in Europe and 38th in the world. Begley hopes that the proper implementation of his strategic plan will catapult the school into the top 25 in the world by 2016.

Before becoming dean, Begley held the Governor Hugh L. Carey Chair in Organizational Behaviour at UCD and did not hesitate to take the top job when the chance arose. “I saw that even though UCD was a very good school, it had tremendous potential that was unrealized. I wanted to take advantage of that to say, ‘Alright, let’s build on the strengths we already have.’ My argument would be that Ireland needs a top-class business school and we should be it.”

Begley, a first-generation Irish-American, grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts to parents who were both born and raised on the Dingle peninsula. A devout Red Sox fan, he admits missing America’s favorite pastime but is becoming more used to watching rugby matches, and is surprisingly knowledgeable about the current plight of the Irish soccer team. Having moved to Ireland in 2004, Begley and his wife Adrienne and their kids, Conor and Caitlin, have settled in well. “We live in Glenageary, near Dun Laoghaire, so we take family walks there and along Dalkey Hill and the strand at Killiney.” That’s not to say that the transition has not been without its challenges. Professor Begley failed the notoriously difficult Irish driving test at the first attempt, but made no mistake second time round. He admits that it has taken time for his family to find out where everything is, but on the whole it has been a great experience.

About 50 percent of the students enrolled in the MBA program are international, and 10 percent are American. Why should U.S. students consider Dublin an option for MBA education? “I would like to think that for Irish-Americans and Americans of all backgrounds that having an American as dean would provide them with some reassurance that it is not such a big leap. I think that right now the majority of students that come over from the U.S. have some kind of connection to Ireland, but over time we are engaging in more and more recruiting because we want to broaden the number of students we bring from the States, so we are attending a lot more MBA fairs there.”

Every year, John Duffy, CEO of Keefe Bruyette and Woods and member of the North American Advisory Board, funds a trip for American students who are interested in the MBA program to spend three or four days looking at facilities and programs, talking to staff and attending social events to see if The Smurfit School is a good fit for them. Indeed, this is one of many tools the school has used to diversify its student population.

The MBA program’s enrollment is 23 percent women, but UCD is trying to attract more women. In conjunction with a women’s magazine in Ireland called Prudence, the school offers a full scholarship to a woman annually. The school is also making efforts to recruit students from all around the globe.

“We have identified several regions of the world that we would like to draw students from and we offer a scholarship to a student from each of those major regions of the world. Asia is under-represented in our student body. We do get some Eastern European students but we would like to see more, as is the case with African and South American students.”

One of the biggest challenges facing Begley and his staff is increasing the fundraising capability of the school. “Americans in business education, or education in general, know that alumni contributions are a very valuable component to a university to succeed.

In Ireland the notion of alumni giving just hasn’t taken root yet. We realize that to develop world-class programs you need to raise more money than tuition fees alone.” To illustrate this, just a few days after our interview, Nike founder Philip Knight pledged $105 million to his old school (Stanford) to build a new campus. Right now UCD Smurfit just cannot compete with this. However, the school plans to develop its fundraising potential by studying U.S. alumni relations, creating an alumni annual giving fund and continuing publication of a professionally designed alumni magazine.

The omens for the future of the school are good, It is one of only nine business schools worldwide that has triple international accreditation for its MBA program (US -AACSB, European-EQUIS and UK-AMBA).

Currently ranked 13th in Europe, the school is in a position to play a leading role on the continent. At a conference in Bologna Italy, 45 countries agreed to harmonize their third and fourth level education in an agreement called the Bologna Declaration. The system adapted by these countries to standardize education structures is already in place at UCD.

A day after our interview, Professor Begley presented his plan to the North American Board, which said it was “exactly the type of ambitious plans that the school should be pursuing.” To quote another famous person on ambition, Elvis Presley once said, “Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.” Apart from a little hiccup with his first driving test, Professor Tom Begley, armed with his 10-year plan, is poised to become the driving force behind UCD Smurfit Business School’s effort to break into the top tier of business schools in the world.