Stephen Cloonan's role in business is, to say the least, diverse. Since selling the Dublin chain of Harry Moore electrical stores, the former managing director now acts as a guidance counsellor to growing businesses, advising owner-managers through expansion, crises, new ventures and even on issues such as personal wealth and career direction.

"I'm a director, an adviser and a chairman. I ask more questions than I provide answers. It is all about confidence - they like to share it with someone," he explains.

"They don't look for me to have any particular expertise but just to be there during a growing phase in the company and to face the challenges with them. They want to speak to someone like themselves who has been through what they are going through," he says.

Since the sale of the Harry Moore chain to Dixons in 1997 Mr Cloonan has influenced an eclectic mix of businesses - advertising, geographic informations, construction and IT. But he is re-entering the retail electronics market with a new company, HM Entertainment.

His contributions to companies are also reflective of his various interests, although he often considers he could contribute more if he concentrated on just one industry but admits he enjoys the variety. "It is amazing how often something that you learn in one business is of benefit in a completely different type of business," he says.

Mr Cloonan believes in constantly "looking to the bigger picture". Whether it is referring to his expansion of Harry Moore from a one-shop business to a chain of shops after he joined in 1983 or how Irish companies need to follow the Americans head first into e-commerce, the bigger picture constantly dominates his thinking.

Even five "fantastic years" in Price Waterhouse did not satisfy Mr Cloonan's ambitions. After graduating from UCD in 1978 with a BComm and then qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1981, he spent most of his time at Price Waterhouse dealing with two or three major clients but felt there was little opportunity in the company for this aspiring entrepreneur and so looked to the bigger picture.

"I am a businessman first and an accountant second," he says. "When I went into a business I was always as interested in the person who owned the business, people who dealt with where the business was going, how it could be improved, rather than necessarily dealing with the accounts."

While at Price Waterhouse Mr Cloonan took out an advertisement in The Irish Times, looking for an owner-manager about to retire that he could buy out and succeed. Harry Moore who was 63 years old and had spent 40 years in the retail electronics market at the time, was just one of 20 respondents to his advertisement.

Between 1983 and 1996 Mr Cloonan increased the profitability and turnover of the Harry Moore chain considerably, expanding from one to seven shops. The success of the business was due mainly to a highly successful marketing campaign which made Harry Moore a household name.

The company's advertising slogan - "For more years than I care to remember", spoken by Harry himself on radio adverts - was Mr Cloonan's brainchild and became instantly recognisable to most Dubliners.

Mr Cloonan believes the marketing campaign coupled with the shop's personalised service was the key to their success. "We never compromised Harry's philosophies, to try to treat the customer as you would like to be treated. We always looked after the customer."

The sale of the Harry Moore chain to Dixons in 1997 was a deal made at the right price and at the right time, he says.

"With that sort of deal we either had to take it or put it away for a few years because we would have had to demonstrate to anyone else after that that we could have been able to withstand Dixons coming in before we could sell again."

Although he believed it was the right decision, "walking out the door and handing the keys to someone else was completely different and very difficult".

So why re-enter the retail electronics market? "HM Entertainment is a small niche business offering a personalised service. It will only appeal to a certain proportion of people who want to come into us and talk about something and then have it delivered and installed."

The deal with Dixons prohibited Mr Cloonan from entering the market for two years. Now, on the expiry of that clause, Mr Cloonan is expanding his TV rental business into a full electronical retail. As chairman of HM Entertainment (the Harry Moore name was sold to Dixons), he will guide two proteges - Paul O'Rourke (30), who worked in Harry Moore and Alan McLean (27), a chartered accountant - as managing directors of the business.

An initial £750,000 (€952,304) investment will see two new shops, one on the site of the original Harry Moore shop on Dawson Street and the other in Blackrock, stock top-of-the-range audiovisual equipment and carry on Harry's legacy of personalised service.

"The retail electronics market has totally changed since I joined the industry in 1983: the range of products available and the distribution channels are different, the scale of operations is much bigger, out-of-town shopping wasn't there," he says.

His role as an overseer in HM Entertainment allows Mr Cloonan to continue to guide other companies. He is chairman of BBC Advertising - a small Dublin-based company with clients such as Rocca Tiles, Smyths Toys and O'Brien's Wines - and of IRIS, a geographic informations company.

Mr Cloonan is keen to remain in the background in helping companies, eschewing a high-profile presence in favour of a more relaxed role - someone a CEO can approach and use as a sounding board for new ideas. He works only for individuals he likes and takes on a moderate amount of work so he can devote his full attention to each client. Aside from his personalised involvement with CEOs, he is also involved in ongoing short-term projects from selling businesses to strategy sessions.

Despite the workload he seems to enjoy the challenges of different companies pursuing change. "I give it to them as I see it. I'm naturally a quiet and reserved person so I don't shout or roar - I'm low-key.

"I look at the bigger picture and develop the people to help them to develop trends. At the moment every business has to tackle e-commerce."

Between his business ventures Mr Cloonan is also a student of the OPM Programme (Owner-President-Manager) at the Harvard Business School, which involves a three-week study stint each year for three years. It has brought him into contact with owner-managers in the US whom he now advises. Working with US companies has shown him that Europe must look to their transatlantic counterpart, especially with regard to IT and e-commerce.

Finally he veers into conceptual beliefs on how a business mind should run, never mind the business itself. "The most important thing for a CEO is knowing what direction the business is taking and what the trends are doing. The day they stop believing in a dream they're gone."