Lory Kehoe is the Founder of Blockchain Ireland and CCO and Head of International at M2. He is also an adjunct professor of Technology Trends and Strategic Information System at Trinity College Dublin. He speaks to Sarah Freeman about the balance between confidence and arrogance and how risk-taking should be celebrated in Ireland.
This article was originally published in Business & Finance magazine vol. 60, annual review 2024. To read the latest issue, click here.
Some days before the sun rises, Lory Kehoe thinks back on some of the things he’s said or done in his salad days and wonders if he could have handled it differently. But the lessons he learned working his way to his current position have helped shape his view of the world and the important personality traits needed to succeed in cryptocurrency.
Kehoe is the founder of Blockchain Ireland, a combined venture between the Irish government and local companies to promote crypto and related ventures in the country. He also serves as the CCO and Head of International at M2, a worldwide crypto investment platform.
Resilience and Humility
A fine line separates confidence and arrogance, and in his early years, he would walk into rooms with guns ablaze, according to Kehoe.
“And I certainly think looking back, I wish I’d have been a lot more a lot more humble, a lot more appreciative over certain things,” he said.
In the early 2000s, Kehoe worked as a lecturer at Griffith College Dublin and the National College of Ireland. Then he transitioned into consulting at Accenture, one of his first big ventures into private business operations. In his lifetime, he’s worked with Coinbase, Forbes Magazine and Deloitte China. Additionally, he now teaches at Trinity College Dublin as an adjunct professor, teaching students about technology and strategies to adapt to the changing tech environment.
Through his time in the business sector, Kehoe has become more reflective, speaking highly of his colleagues who have shaped his career path for the better:
“It’s one of those things sometimes you don’t know you’re in the good times or you’re working with fantastic people or to the extent of how amazing they are until you’re no longer in that job or you’re no longer working with those people.”
Kehoe’s also surrounded by people with greater personal and professional resilience, especially when his ability to bounce-back mirrors that of a 2 year old, he joked. That personality trait helps people recover when tough situations arise and hard decisions are made.
“I actually think it’s because of some of their personal lives where they’ve developed the resilience that then makes them have perspective in the professional world and just helps them kind of move on and move forward,” Kehoe said.
Like most, he doesn’t necessarily support all the decisions he’s made in the past. But those past mistakes have taught him how to return stronger and more prepared for what the world might throw his way.
“As you get older, that gives you a lot of perspective as to perhaps when you can be confident and then also the way in which you can be confident and how that can be perceived,” he said. “And you manage and balance all those kinds of things where it comes across as confidence and not arrogance.”
Much of this belief comes from reflecting on how he has, in the past, been too quick to make a call or judge people without fully understanding the context of the situation.
Nowadays, he wants to give back to the community, particularly on a discreet basis.
“I’ve had a very privileged upbringing,” Kehoe said. “And I definitely started thinking about how I can give back and try and think about ways to do that which I can manage personally.”
Taking Risks
He doesn’t dwell on his shortcomings for long, though. He believes, instead, that a person should be able to take risks and be given the grace to fail, as long as they eventually pick themselves off the ground and dust themselves off.
His current positions at Blockchain Ireland and M2 require risk-taking. Crypto, especially in places with little government regulation, can be a volatile market. As such, Kehoe believes in making educated financial choices.
“I’m not advising people to purchase lots of crypto and make wild investments, but you can buy as little as a euro worth or a dollar’s worth,” he said. “That way you’ll understand what it is to onboard onto a platform, what it is to purchase a small amount, what the fees are associated with that.”
Having a basic understanding of cryptocurrency makes for smarter investment decisions.
“That for me is an important part of financial literacy,” he said. “We’re starting to see a lot more financial literacy courses taught around the world and crypto becoming a component of that.”
One of the biggest challenges he faces in his job is the lack of support for risk-taking in a society that might view a steady job as a better alternative. However, at the governmental level, there are positive signs that Ireland is fostering a supportive environment for risk-taking, especially with the tax incentives for angel investors, according to Kehoe.
Still, there’s still a level of judgement given to those who chose the riskier path.
“For me in Ireland, we need to turn the page a little bit,” Kehoe said. “I think we’ve got to respect for giving it a go…as opposed to, you know, ‘Maybe you should have stayed in that steady job and maybe you shouldn’t have joined that startup at all.’”
He added:
“I think we need to encourage people to go out on their own a bit more…After university, that’s when you can take risks. Ultimately, it’s at that stage of your career where if you try something that doesn’t work out for a year or two, then you go back and you either pick up your studies again or continue your studies or start your grad program or whatever it may be.”
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