By Business & Finance 
Donal Murphy, Managing Director, Bluestone Ireland
Donal Murphy, Managing Director, Bluestone Ireland, takes on the Business & Finance 60-second interview challenge.
Q. What was your first job? Like many people from Bray, Co. Wicklow my first ‘job’ was working in the amusements as a teenager, helping people on and off the ‘bumpers’. I suppose I have always liked cars. My first real job, however, was actually in London in 1988. Ireland at the time was in the midst of a horrific recession with massive unemployment. Consequently, the best way to get a job was to emigrate. I was fortunate to get a job with a small financial leasing company where I pretty much started from the ground up on the sales support desk and learnt the nuts and bolts of motor finance. In hindsight, it was a tremendous start. Q. What would you regard as your greatest achievement to date? If I had to pick just one, I would say being part of the team here at Bluestone which has built a business from scratch since 2014. In just three years, we have gone from zero to over €100 million in lending and have reached out to over 13,000 customers. The vast majority of these customers – self-employed, no financial track record, or impaired but repaying – simply could not get a car loan prior to Bluestone’s entry into the market and helping them to get ahead is something we are very proud of. Q. In three words or less, how do you define success? Strong, sustainable, trust. Q. How do you motivate yourself and your staff? Being part of a team with a broader vision and mission is what personally motivates me. I think people work best when they feel part of something bigger so we try to build an environment where there is an emphasis on teamwork. It’s a fairly flat structure, where everyone rolls their sleeves up and where the sum of the parts is invariably much greater. We have a fantastic team here and there is great satisfaction when hard work shared leads to success. Q. If you could step into the shoes of one business person for the day, who would it be and why? He’s retired now but definitely Jack Welch of General Electric (GE). Prior to Bluestone, I worked for Woodchester which was taken over by GE. At GE, you always felt part of a community. There was a huge pride in wearing the jersey. GE was so diverse in terms of its business lines and the multinational composition of its employees and yet everyone was on the same page, which was an extraordinary achievement. We try to replicate that ethos and culture. Q. How do you relax? That’s an easy answer. Weekends are spent standing on the side of a pitch coaching and supporting my two young sons in their various sports and acting as an all-round chauffeur. Q. What’s your motto? Treat people as you would like to be treated yourself. Q. What are your aspirations for the future of your business? To continue to reach out to more customers who currently find it difficult to access finance to buy a car or to run a small business. There is a gap in the market that Bluestone is filling and we want to continue to broaden our franchise and to develop new products that are relevant to our customers.
The vast majority of these customers – self-employed, no financial track record, or impaired but repaying – simply could not get a car loan prior to Bluestone’s entry into the market and helping them to get ahead is something we are very proud of.
