By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Sean Sheehan, Founder and CEO, Wisetek.
Sean Sheehan, Founder and CEO, Wisetek, is Business Person of the Month for January 2023, in association with KPMG. Sheehan continues to push Wisetek’s commitment to the circular economy.
Sean Sheehan founded Cork-headquartered company, Wisetek, a global provider of end-to-end IT asset disposition services, in November 2007. The company specialises in ITAD, secure data destruction, reuse and technology manufacturing services worldwide with facilities in Ireland, the UK, the USA, the Middle East, Africa and Thailand. Currently, the company employs up to 450 people and has annual revenues of over 80M euro.
Cork-born entreprenuer Sheehan was inspired to start Wisetek after working at data storage company, EMC, where he was involved in taking back leased equipment at the end of contracts. He spotted an opportunity in the market and after 16 years with his former employer, he created Wisetek having first established a contract with EMC to retrieve and recycle equipment for them.
An EU directive, Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), established in 2012, further propelled Wisetek’s business model as manufacturers had to accept responsibility for the safe disposal of their IT hardware. The advent of GDPR directives has also created opportunities for the company and, to date, Wisetek has either erased or destroyed up to 14 million disk drives.
More recently, Sheehan has spoken about the importance of the circular economy. Wisetek was an early adopter and then leader in providing an alternative to landfill for used equipment at a time when the majority of perfectly reusable product ended up there.
Previously, the hardworking businessman has described his first job to Business & Finance as driving a tractor for a silage contractor. He said, “I was born into a farm so from the first time I could wear Wellies there was always something to be done.”
Read more BPOM:
November 2022: Barry Napier, CEO, Cubic Telecom
October 2022: Rosheen McGuckian, CEO, NTR Plc
September 2022: John Jordan, CEO, Ornua
Business & Finance, Business Person of the Month
Business & Finance, in association with KPMG, rewards excellence in business through the ‘Business Person of the Month’ award. This award seeks to recognise noteworthy achievements in business leadership, and, particularly, those that make a telling contribution to the wider business community in Ireland.
