Delvin man tipped to lead Ryanair

A Ryanair executive who hurled for Brownstown for some years was one of four people named in a Sunday Independent article at the weekend as a potential replacement for Michael O’Leary when he steps down from his role at the helm of Ryanair.

Dara Brady, who is the chief marketing officer with the airline, is the man who found his name before the public as a potential candidate.

And the source of the tip? Michael O’Leary himself.

In an interview with journalist Fearghal O’Connor, Mr O’Leary (64) indicated that he has no planned retirement date, and no desire to leave, but his current contract runs to 2028.

However, he said, the firm has a generation of “brilliant” middle-level managers aged around 40 coming up behind the current senior team, who are now in their 60s.

The four whom he named were “Neil McMahon in operations; Jason McGuinness running commercial; Dara Brady in sales and marketing; Ryanair DAC CFO Tracey McCann”.

They were, he said “really good people”, who understand the business, and are currently responsible for the day-to-day delivery of the business.

“We don’t want to have a kind of monastic succession here. Whoever wants to replace me needs to compete for the job.

“But clearly internal managers would have an advantage, given that you can’t exactly go to another airline, like Aer Lingus or BA or Lufthansa – all of whom are much smaller than us – to find the next CEO of Ryanair. They don’t run the same kind of operations that we do.”

Dara is the son of Tony and Jacinta Brady, and he attended St Joseph’s secondary school in Athboy before going on to the Technological University of the Shannon where he received a degree in business, management and marketing. He joined Ryanair in 2002.

Presidency

In the same interview, Mr O’Leary firmly ruled himself out of the running for the presidency of Ireland: “I have a full-time job. It pays me well, and I don’t want an overpaid non-job like the presidency of Ireland,” he said.

“As much as my wife would like to move back to Dublin, hell would freeze over before I would move.

“Even if I were to find myself in the unfortunate position of being President of Ireland, the Áras would be moving to Gigginstown House,” Mr O’Leary told the Independent.