PADDY Wright joined the Jefferson Smurfit Group in 1976 as personal assistant to Dr Michael Smurfit.

In February 1994 he was appointed to the hoard of the group. Many industry observers had expected an earlier elevation to board level for the popular and competent executive.

In June Mr Wright will become president and chief operations officer, number two to the chairman and chief executive, Dr Michael Smurfit, in the group which for 1995 reported the highest ever profits for an Irish company, £420 million.

Mr Wright has been chairman and chief executive of Smurfit's operations in Ireland and Britain since 1992. This division of the group had sales last year of £628 million.

The 55 year old Dubliner has wide experience throughout the group's operations. After two years as personal assistant to Dr Smurfit, he was appointed managing director of the Smurfit Distributing Division. Later, he moved on to run the Corrugated and Allied Packaging division.

After 10 years with the group, he was appointed chairman/chief executive of Smurfit Ireland. Six years later, in 1992, he took over responsibility for Smurfit UK in addition to the Irish operations.

A past president of the Confederation of Irish Industry, he is now on the national executive committee of the Irish Business and Employers Conference, the body formed from the merger of the CII and the Federation of Irish Employers.

Deeply involved in business development in Ireland and abroad, Mr Wright is a vice president of the Union of Industrial and Employers Confederations In Europe (UNICE). In Ireland, he is a fellow of the National College of Industrial Relations, the Irish Management Institute and the Marketing Institute of Ireland. He is chairman of the Educational Trust of Dublin City University.

Mr Wright has served on a number of state boards and is a director of Aer Lingus. He was appointed chairman of Bord Iascaigh Mhara in May 1987 and his three year term was extended in 1990 for a further three. He joined the Aer Lingus board in 1992.

Educated at O'Connell's Christian Brothers School in Dublin, Mr Wright is married and has five children. A member of a number of sporting clubs, he plays golf and is a keen supporter of the Dublin Gaelic football team. His interests include "most sports", especially Gaelic games, music and reading.

Before he joined Smurfit, Mr Wright worked with the B & I line in the 1960s and with the Rank Organisation's holding company in Ireland, Odeon (Ireland), where he rose to become managing director.