The Irish Management Institute's new chief executive, Dr Tom McCarthy, intends to have the organisation ranked in the world's top 50 executive management centres within a decade.
Following a strategic review of the body, which began after his appointment last September, Dr McCarthy has come up with a plan to make the institute more relevant to Irish business people.
At the centre of this lies his ambition to have it ranked by the Financial Times as one of the top 50 centres in the world for training managers. The paper only ranks the top 50 so, by virtue of the fact that the IMI is outside this, it currently has no ranking at all.
Dr McCarthy argues that the institute has to look at what it does from a global perspective. "We might be the best in this country, but what does that mean if we have nothing to compare ourselves with?" he asks.
The IMI has been going for over 50 years, and can claim to be the premier body of its type in the Republic. However, Dr McCarthy emphasises that it has to bring itself up to speed with the changes that have occurred in business and the economy over the last decade and a half.
The bulk of the workforce has shifted from agriculture and manufacturing to white-collar activities, what Dr McCarthy describes as "information workers". "Most people make their living by handling information of one kind or another," he explains.
He adds that the IMI needs to make itself relevant to that. The IMI's own documents state that it needs to be seen as increasingly "entrepreneurial and mattering to Irish business".
"We will do that by focusing on delivering relevant programmes for business," Dr McCarthy says. "In our courses, we need to deliver improved business results, and that comes down to improved productivity."
The institute delivers a masters degree in management in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin. It will keep that association and develop new partnerships with academia.
In terms of its non-award courses (generally two or three-day stints focused on specific areas), Dr McCarthy wants to give these an emphasis that will make them of practical use to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which make up the bulk of businesses and, consequently, employers in the Republic.
Dr McCarthy intends that a lot of IMI courses will be innovative, based on relevant research and delivered by leading international business academics.
This year's IMI conference will be the first sign of change. Previously it was a convivial (to say the least) weekend gathering in Killarney. But lately it appeared to be losing direction, and attendances at the sessions were slipping.
Killarney's loss will be the Druid's Glen's gain, as the conference will shift to the Co Wicklow venue and take a day and a half instead of a weekend. It will kick off on Thursday, April 21st, and finish at lunchtime the following day.
There will be high-profile speakers. One of those likely to attract the most attention will be Ireland rugby coach Mr Eddie O'Sullivan, who will hopefully be a victorious Six-Nations coach by then.
Recently departed Aer Lingus boss Mr Willie Walsh will be there, as will three Cabinet members: the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, Minister for Finance Mr Cowen, and Minister for Transport Mr Cullen.
On the international front, the IMI has recruited Mr Charles Leadbeater, an author as well as adviser on innovation to UK prime minister Mr Tony Blair.
Another speaker, Ms Martha Maznevski, comes from the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dr McCarthy is keen to stress that the conference will involve more than high-profile managers and academics addressing the masses. Many speakers will take part in "break-out" workshop sessions. In addition, the topics they address will be audience-driven.
Dr McCarthy says that the institute has already canvassed questions and issues that members want individual speakers to address. This will allow them to give talks that are tailored to their Irish audience and its concerns.
Dr Tom McCarthy is from Cork and did both his basic and masters degrees in economics in University College Cork (UCC). He subsequently moved to Canada where he earned his doctorate in Queens University, in Kingston, Ontario. He also taught there and in Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario.
He returned to his alma mater in 1990 and lectured in economics there for two years before shifting to the National University of Ireland (NUI) Maynooth.
After a 12-year period, during which he served as dean of postgraduate studies and dean of research, he moved to Dublin City University (DCU in 2002, where he was head of the business school.
He has also been a visiting scholar at Queen's University Canada, the Centre for Economic studies in Munich, Germany, and the economic policy research unit at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He is a member of the Higher Education Authority, the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation and a range of other State and European bodies.
He says that he left his academic career in search of a new challenge. Getting the IMI into the top echelon of executive management centres could prove to be just that.
