WILD GEESE:Ann Dempsey, MD of Riverland consultancy firm, Germany
IRISH DIGNITARIES visiting Germany always face a difficult choice – Berlin or Munich? To be on the safe side, most choose both because, while Berlin is the political capital, Munich is unquestionably Germany’s Irish capital.
The city has its own GAA teams and even a St Patrick’s Day parade, the biggest on continental Europe. More than 4,000 Irish live among the Bavarians who, with their love of a drink and good company, are a closer match with the Irish than the stiffer Prussians further north.
Add a booming local economy and a business-friendly environment and it’s easy to see why entrepreneur Ann Dempsey made Munich her home and the headquarters of Riverland, the thriving consultancy firm she co-founded with her brother David in 2008.
In just two years, the company has become one of Germany’s leading Oracle applications partners, providing customers such as BMW and rail-operator Deutsche Bahn with tailor-made customer relations management solutions.
“In 2004, Ireland was a booming economy and I didn’t make a conscious decision to leave, but Munich was in the middle of its sunny summer and the pull factor was huge,” said Dempsey, Riverland’s managing director.
The red-haired 37 year old is of a new generation of German Irish: young, confident professionals won over by the opportunities of Europe’s largest economy and the high standard of living. The boom-era squeeze on Ireland’s quality of life put Bavaria’s attractions in sharper relief.
Now Dempsey finds herself at home in a vibrant, cosmopolitan hub to which, particularly between the Oktoberfest and winter sport season, friends don’t need a second invitation: “It’s wonderful being able to go to the mountains for just a few hours.”
Born in Dublin, Dempsey grew up in Terenure and studied business and legal studies at UCD. In 1994, on the day of her graduation, she went to New York and “did the waitress thing in upstate New York for six summers. As a child I was much more oriented to the US, I knew nothing in the opposition direction, except perhaps France,” she said.
In 1996, she began working as a network engineer for Intel. “I spent two years learning with them and had a great experience travelling around their plants in the world,” she says. “I still rave about what they are able to do.”
She moved to software company Trintech and managed internet payment gateways from the US to the Far East before moving to Munich in 2003 where her brother has lived for 20 years. Together they founded Riverland in 2008. “I love to work with Dave: he takes care of the investment side and I manage operations,” she says.
To the delight of the Dempseys, their new German-Irish company operates in an area of industry that coincides with, and taps into, the respective strengths of the German and Irish characters. “Engineering is the backbone of Germany whereas the backbone of Ireland is relationship management,” says Dempsey.
“From an early age, Germans are streamlined into thinking ‘this is my expertise, this is what I focus on’. Their expectations are set and they need a strong framework and hierarchy within which to work.”
Riverland’s Irish staff provide a creative counterbalance of communication and ideas, she says, giving the company a competitive advantage.
For Dempsey, Munich is a rewarding but demanding place to crack, with a professional class that, from meeting preparation to time-keeping, outflanks the Irish equivalent: “Business here is driven by quality and working to time and a budget, but the Germans value the Irish adaptability to build relationships and help them reach outwards.”
Despite owning her own business, Ms Dempsey says life in Munich allows a healthy work-life balance, not to mention a social life more varied than Ireland’s default pub culture.
With that in mind, Dempsey has set up the Irish-Munich Network to bring together Irish emigrants who have vanished into Munich’s woodwork. Now it is a thriving group of Irish people interested in meeting others without a burden of emigrant mutual dependency.
“I’ve had hugely positive feedback,” she says. “We can be a huge help to each other whether on cultural things or business matters, and can enable others.”
Dempsey is in no doubt a new generation of Irish will fall in love with the Bavarian capital: “Everyone who comes to visit me in Munich wants to live here.”
