Business and Finance MBA Scholar joins Alltech: Finding a place in the future of food systems

An Executive MBA at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School helped Rory O’Sullivan turn a long-standing passion for agriculture and sustainability into a clear career direction, leading to a new chapter at Alltech.

When I began the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Executive MBA, I expected the year to stretch me. I expected the workload, the exams, the group work and the pressure of balancing study with career and life.

What I did not expect was that the MBA would help me answer a more personal question: what kind of work did I really want to give my time to?

That question had been with me since East Africa. I spent six years there at the start of my career, where I saw how deeply agriculture shaped social and economic life across the region. It was not an abstract sector. It was connected to livelihoods, communities, markets, weather, land, risk and hope.

When I later worked with Bord Bia and Dawn Meats, that interest became more focused. I began to see Irish food not just as an export story, but as part of a much bigger global conversation: how countries trade, how producers compete, how sustainability becomes commercial, and how food systems adapt to a changing world.

The MBA helped me shape that instinct into something more deliberate. While the programme strengthened core disciplines such as corporate finance, management accounting and strategy, it also gave me the space to explore the areas I was most drawn to: sustainability, food systems and the future of agriculture.

Through the Global Network for Advanced Management, I studied natural capital and sustainability finance with Yale School of Management, which changed how I thought about food, land, water, biodiversity and energy — not just as environmental issues, but as business assets and sources of long-term value. That thinking became practical through a live consulting project in Portugal with Sovena Group, a major Mediterranean agribusiness, where we explored sustainability strategy.

The Changemakers in Global Food and Agribusiness GNAM week at UCD Smurfit, led by Professor Damien McLoughlin, brought those threads together. It reinforced something I had already begun to believe: agriculture is becoming one of the defining business leadership challenges of the next 30 years.

That is the context in which I joined Alltech.

Alltech stood out to me because it is not treating agriculture as a legacy sector, but as a place of innovation, debate and possibility. Its vision of working toward a Planet of Plenty resonated with me because it recognises that agriculture has a central role to play in solving some of the world’s most important challenges.

I was also inspired by the work of Tara McCarthy, a UCD alumna and VP of ESG at Alltech, from opening public debate on the future of agriculture through World Without Cows, to working at the intersection of sustainability and innovation.

That mattered to me. I wanted it to be a step towards a sector and a mission I could grow with.

I am grateful to UCD Smurfit, Business & Finance and Alltech for helping shape this next chapter.