Tech Person of the Year Award for Voxpro Duo
31st October 2018
The winners of 8 categories in the it@cork Leaders Awards 2018 were presented with awards at a sold-out ceremony in Cork’s Rochestown Park Hotel earlier this month. From start-ups to global multinationals, as well as innovative ideas coming through from the third level education sector, the awards, which are in their 12th year, recognise all those who have gone further than most in the use of technology in their respective organisations and businesses.
Attendees at the event witnessed one of the region’s most well-known business couples, Linda & Dan Kiely, celebrated as “Tech Person of the Year” at the event, which was attended by over 300 of the region’s best and brightest tech pros. Voxpro is a rapidly growing business, which started from humble beginnings when Linda & Dan Kiely set up their company above a pub in Cork with 6 employees in 1995. Voxpro currently employs about 5,000 people globally & has just announced plans to recruit a further 400 for their Cork team. Voxpro partners with innovative disruptive companies, to develop world-class customer experience, technical support, trust & safety and marketing & sales operations and delivers memorable and enjoyable experiences to their communities and customers globally.
Speaking at the event Caroline O’Driscoll, Chairperson of it@cork, “The pace of growth in Ireland’s technology industry is incredibly exciting, and this is in no small part due to the work that is being doing by the many ICT companies located in one of Europe’s most active and growing tech hubs – Cork. This year we had the highest number of nominations ever, and each year it becomes increasingly difficult to select winners because of the high calibre of contenders. The future for Cork Tech is extremely bright –I want to take this opportunity to congratulate not only the winners, but the nominees and most importantly, the people who stand behind them – each award winner and nominee is powered by a team and I want to thank each and every one of the 29,000 employees working in our thriving, ground-breaking and boundary-pushing ICT sector.”
Voxpro built their reputation partnering closely with some of the world’s most iconic global technology brands such as Airbnb, Google, and Nest. Headquartered in Cork, the company is now scaling operations globally alongside TELUS International, with locations across North and Central America, Europe and an expanding presence in Asia, supporting Digital Transformation, Business Excellence Outsourcing, ITO and digital customers in over 40 languages across the globe.
Upon receiving their award Ms. Kiely said she believed that these events were integral in highlighting the achievements and hard work throughout the year of people in the tech industry. Ms. Kiely said that it’s important that people give back and share their knowledge with others, “I definitely want to help other companies – it would be in my DNA to do that. I am particularly interested in start-ups that are investigating ‘uncharted territory’. Investing in people is absolutely paramount. I firmly believe that the success of Voxpro and the reason I am here today is down to our people. It’s the coming together of their innovation, their drive and the tireless work ethic that has brought the company from a 6-person operation in 1995 to a global tech leader today.
Since setting up our business in 1995, we have been so fortunate to have had such a skilled and brilliant workforce to choose from – which meant that we were able to assemble the teammates we needed to take our business where it needed to grow. And over the next 18 months we’ll be adding a further 400 people to our Cork team – and I’m confident that that we’ll have a wealth of talent to choose from. But it’s so important we develop, support and grow that talent. Today’s trainees and graduates are tomorrow’s leaders!”
Speaking of the future for IT in Cork and all over the country, Ms. O’ Driscoll,
“Personally, I have always been taken by the possibilities that technology brings. In the future, I don’t think we’ll be talking about the tech sector in isolation, it will permeate everything that we do. We already see this in FinTech, AgriTech, BioTech – all traditional industries that are accelerating and evolving through technology. With advances in AI, the next 10 years will be transformative, changes that will result in the new economies of tomorrow – economies and opportunities we cannot even begin to imagine.
Our responsibility is to work with the many vibrant stakeholders vested in the economic development of Cork, so that we can collectively realise our ambition to be the location of choice in Ireland for the indigenous and international Tech Sector. With Cork set to become the fastest growing region under the Project Ireland 2040 plan, this is a truly exciting time for what is most certainly a city rising”.
Pictured: Dynamic Duo, Dan and Linda Kiely are honoured with Cork’s Tech Person of the Year, at the annual it@cork Leaders Awards with chairperson Caroline O’ Driscoll (left) and judge Dan Mackey of Teamwork (far right). (Pic Diane Cusack).
