By Héloïse Chaudot 
Flip-Pay, an enterprise platform for the media industry. Paul McCarthy-Brain has a background in designing high-scale commerce infrastructure, and he now works with international publishers to help drive sustainable digital revenue growth through subscriptions and content monetisation.
What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
The company I’ve built, Flip-Pay, provides subscription and payment technology for media and news publishers. We’ve grown fast, so my top priority is handling growth properly and looking after our employees, not just reacting. Second, I’m looking at how we take the technology we’ve built for publishers and turn it into new products for other markets.
What are your biggest challenges as CEO?
A significant amount of new business now comes through referrals, yet it can only go so far. The challenge is taking what we know works, entering new markets, and making sure the market understands what we can actually do.
How do you keep your team/staff motivated?
Communication is critical. We have a weekly all-hands meeting where we talk about what we’re doing and why. We’re also extremely flexible as an employer and hire very carefully. Good people generally don’t need to be micromanaged; they need context, trust and the ability to get on with their jobs.
What are the challenges facing the industry going forward?
Publishing is being hit from several directions. Print circulation is declining, advertising revenues are under pressure, and AI-generated search summaries are cutting referral traffic. Publishers also face misinformation and synthetic content, and an increasingly fragmented relationship with audiences. The strongest businesses will need to rely on a mix of advertising, subscriptions, memberships and events, rather than any single revenue stream.
What new trends are emerging in your industry?
AI is changing almost everything. What previously took weeks can now be demonstrated in as little as half an hour. The companies to look out for will be those quietly embedding it effectively, not necessarily the ones talking about it the loudest.
Are there any major changes you would like to see in your sector?
As someone who builds subscription and payment systems for a living, it’d be great to have a common European digital banking and payments framework based on genuinely open standards. Europe is already significantly ahead with open banking and real-time account payments, and I’d love to see our global counterparts join us.
As an employer, are you finding any skill gaps in the market?
Generally, no. Being based in Dublin gives us an extraordinary pool of engineering, product and commercial talent. AI is different, since it’s developing so fast that few people arrive with deep experience. For us, the ability to learn quickly matters more than knowing everything on day one.
How did your strategy develop in the context of the banking crisis and economic crisis?
COVID was actually the major inflexion point for us. We rolled out a significant digital transformation programme for Mediahuis Ireland, including the subscription technology behind the Irish Independent and its sister publications. Demand for subscription and reader-revenue technology increased quickly worldwide; it never went back after COVID, if anything, the move keeps accelerating.
How do you define success, and what drives you to succeed?
Success is sleep. If I’m sleeping properly, there’s nothing substantial keeping me awake. It’s also family, happiness and health, and seeing engaged, empowered people move the company forward without everything passing through me. What drives me is an insatiable appetite for technology and a desire to build products people actually want to use.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given in business?
Hire people smarter than you.
What advice would you give to others starting in business?
Do the market research by talking to the people you expect to buy your product. Ask what frustrates them and what they’re actually willing to pay to fix, then build something that solves it better than the alternatives.
What have been your highlights in business over the past year?
Growth in the United States is our biggest highlight. It’s satisfying seeing our reputation compound as publishers increasingly come to us via referrals. When customers start finding you, it changes the whole dynamic of a business.
What’s next for your company?
We’ve just launched Made By Humans, an AI-detection platform for newsrooms — so we’ll be busy rolling this out. The timing is particularly interesting because EU regulations are beginning to require greater transparency around AI-generated content.
Where do you want your business/brand to be this time next year?
We already have a significant proportion of our business in the United States, so our next priority is expansion and gaining the same level of awareness and momentum in Europe and South America.
What is the best book you’ve ever read (non-business) and why?
The Joy of Cookies by Cookie Monster. I’ve read plenty of high-brow stuff, but honestly, it’s a deeply philosophical book. There are real messages about joy, self-love and love for others that we tend to forget as adults. I read it once a year; it makes me happy and clears my mind.
What is your favourite hobby and why?
I restore classic computers, typically from the 1970s and 80s. Who doesn’t love a green-screen monitor and a 5¼-inch floppy drive? My background is in electronics, so my mind is quietest when I’m at a bench diagnosing a logic board that hasn’t worked since 1983.
What is your mantra for life?
You will never leave footprints if you tiptoe.
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