CNBC Business | Declan Ganley

Declan Ganley

Declan Ganley’s astonishing rise shows a flair for locating the next big idea and then creating the market conditions for take-off. By Richard Lofthouse

KEY FACTS

Ganley emigrated from Ireland to London at 18, and made his first break in an insurance brokerage.
In 1990 he was exporting Siberian aluminium to the West via Latvia.
Other businesses have included Kipelova Forestry Enterprises in Latvia; Capital Route, a pan-European executive chauffeur company; and three telcos – Broadnet, Cabletel and today Rivada Networks.

A MOGUL MANUAL

THE 10 ENTREPRENEURIAL RULES OF DECLAN GANLEY

Invest heavily in pre-start-up research and diligence of potential entrepreneurial opportunities rather than trying to plug holes and gaps after the fact.
As an entrepreneur, attempt to surround yourself with a management team of people who are smarter than you are.
Making big money is the by-product of passion for something else, it is rarely the result of merely wanting to make money.
The laws of political astuteness and patronage: make friends in high places, and influence people; don’t be afraid to tackle academics and politicians alike.
Make the market: if no one believes in your idea, organise a conference to construct the debate your product needs.
There is no limit to the value of lateral thinking in an entrepreneurial situation
Don’t forget who you are (or who you’d like to project yourself as). In this case Irish identity is Ganley’s heartfelt USP and has helped him in the States.
Lead from the front, as Ganley did in New Orleans, and never forget that your team is watching.
It is possible to have several different businesses on the go at once but don’t forget that you’ll be working 24/7 to achieve your objectives, and some of them will fail.
Don’t neglect your principles. Ganley is firmly of the belief that honour and integrity precede money making – spoken like a true military man with Catholic underpinnings.

BASHING BRUSSELS

GANLEY REGULARLY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST “AN UNACCOUNTABLE BRUSSELS ELITE”

GANLEY RESEMBLES THOMAS PAINE, the French-American 18th-century revolutionary, proclaiming the will of the people over the loathsome tyranny of a corrupt monarchy.

Europe today is run by “an unaccountable Brussels elite” who no longer pay attention to their true constituency, the people. This does not mean that Ganley is a Eurosceptic in favour of a return to narrow nationalism. Rather, he supports a far more radical notion of Europe “coming together in the face of history or facing a dismal future”. By this he means that Europe must quickly move beyond national politics into a genuinely pan-European entity with pan-European political representation and an elected president.

He sees national political party infrastructure as the ultimate “legacy system” and has already begun to quietly rally like-minded Europeans around a low-key, pan-European organisation called Libertas “that might morph into a powerfully funded pro-business, pro-free trade, pro-accountability, anti-corruption European political party”. If you google Libertas, however, you get a high-class lesbian shopping site.

His message to the business community is to pay far greater attention to Brussels and to politically engage rather than merely moaning from the sidelines: “It’s a little bit like someone who goes to watch a hurling match, brings his blanket and picnic basket and all of a sudden realises he is sitting in the middle of the pitch. You either get up and play or you get clobbered.” (Business and Finance, 6 May, 2004)

GANLEY HAS ALSO made his views known at some length in other publications. He has described current European political arrangements as the ultimate “legacy system”:

“All of these goings on [how the President of the European Council is selected rather than elected] in Europe point to a current flaw in our European system of democracy whose structures are failing us through a combination of self interest, incompatibility with the modern world and inability to adapt. These failing structures are the embodiment of ‘old Europe’.

“Like the creaking analogue telephone systems of earlier decades, Europe’s system of nationally structured political parties has now become a legacy system. You can tweak and push the system harder, you can give it a fresh coat of paint and add new parts, but what lies underneath is no longer capable of delivering the high performance that a new generation of Europeans need in this new century and millennium. The overhaul required may be considered by some to be radical. The old ‘analogue’ system must be left behind to wither away over time. European politics needs to go ‘digital’.” (Draft for a letter, undated)

Ganley says the “Brussels elite” fails entrepreneurs: “They are not risk-takers; they don’t know what it is to take risks. Why as entrepreneurs would we ever expect them to do anything for us, why do they listen to people when they come in and say: ‘What we need is national champions,’ and they say: ‘That’s an interesting idea.’ I mean, Christ! Europe is made up of grey men, three-pension people.” (Interview with CNBCEB, November 2005)

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