By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Ian Hyland, President and Publisher of Business & Finance, Fergal Leamy, CEO of Glen Dimplex, and Séamus Hand, Managing Partner, KPMG Ireland.
To celebrate the upcoming Business & Finance Awards 2024, and to honour Business & Finance‘s 60 year history of delivering the best in business news, reportage and thought leadership, we take a look back at previous winners of the coveted Company of the Year Award.
Company of the Year is part of the renowned Business & Finance Awards recognition programme, in association with KPMG. It honours Irish businesses for having made a significant impact in Ireland.
Business & Finance was launched in 1964 as Ireland’s premier business magazine. The Business & Finance Awards programme was established a decade later, in 1974, and has become Ireland’s longest-running and most coveted business awards programme. These prestigious awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of some of our most remarkable business leaders.
In association with KPMG Ireland, the Company of the Year Award recognises Irish businesses who, along with having a significant impact in Ireland, operate with an international focus and have annual revenue exceeding €350 million.
Winners
The award was first presented to Iona Technologies in 1999, a specialist in SOA technology. The company was sold to Progress Software in 2008.
Other previous winners include Kerry Group (2009, 2012, 2015) and Kingspan (2005, 2018).
ICON won the prestigious award at the 2021 ceremony. Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON shared an anecdote as he accept the award: “I reflected a little bit, in that I had played rugby against an Irish team about thirty years ago… Over the last twenty years, or the last ten years, I have been with an Irish team in ICON, the guys down there on table seventy four. And I can absolutely tell you, it’s a lot more fun playing with an Irish team than it is playing against one.”
Pic: Steve Cutler, ICON, winner of Company of the Year 2021. Photo Credit: Andres Poveda
Established in 1990 by Dr John Climax and Dr Ronan Lambe, ICON’s mission has been to accelerate the development of drugs and devices with save lives and improve quality of life. They employ over 1,000 people in the Republic alone and are a global provider of consulting, and outsourced development and commercialisation services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and government and public health organisations.
Pictured (L–R): Seamus Hand, Managing Partner, KPMG Ireland; John Jordan, CEO, Ornua and Ian Hyland, President and Publisher, Business & Finance. Photo: Andres Poveda
The 48th annual Business & Finance Awards, in association with KPMG, held in December 2022, hosted over 1,000 leading Irish business figures including President Ursula von der Leyen, former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, Ukrainian ambassador Larysa Gerasko and Taoiseach Micheál Martin. This event saw Ornua win Company of the Year.
The Agricultural co-operative, led by CEO John Jordan, markets the iconic Irish brand, Kerrygold, to the world. The judges credited the company’s growing presence in the US as well as its significant output amongst the reasons for Ornua winning the award.
The Company of the Year award recognises Irish businesses who, along with having a significant impact in Ireland, operate with an international focus and have annual revenue exceeding €350 million.
Heating and industrial company, Glen Dimplex, was named Company of the Year 2023. The company is acclaimed for its exemplary leadership in sustainable innovation and a successful global expansion.
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