Anne Heraty and her husband Paul Carroll will shortly step onto millionaire's row. Later this month, CPL, the recruitment consultancy group they founded 10 years ago, will float on the Dublin and London stock markets valuing the duo's stake at £13 million (€16.5 million).

It's a lucrative move by any stretch of the imagination but Ms Heraty is keen to underline her intention of continuing to be a major force in the company. "There will undoubtedly be some changes but I am very hands on. I really enjoy the whole recruitment side of the business and I envisage that I will still have time to focus on that," she says.

Her potential great wealth combined with her forthcoming role as the first woman chief executive of an Irish publicly quoted company has put the 39-year-old Co Longford woman under the public spotlight.

But in her first interview she is keen to narrow the focus to her company, revealing little of herself. Being in the public eye is a new phenomenon and one which she is clearly uncomfortable with. "I am hoping it's not going to be a big intrusion for me. I don't particularly want to be in the public eye. I'd prefer if you could do this without courting the publicity but I have to put the growth of the company and the people who work for it ahead of what my own preference might be."

Ms Heraty just wants to put her head down and stay focused on developing CPL. "I am just going to stick to the knitting" she insists.

She got into the recruitment business when she joined Grafton Recruitment having previously worked in sales. After two years with Grafton she went into partnership with recruitment consultant, Mr Keith O'Malley, and eventually bought out the company in 1989 with her husband. Since then, Mr Carroll has worked as CPL's business development director.

The recruitment business was a more difficult animal at that time with companies concentrating on letting staff go rather than taking them on. "The economy went into recession in the early 1990s and a lot of people were being made redundant. Despite the recession we still managed to build a strong brand. We concentrated on a niche sector. We kept our heads down and worked hard."

Specialising in the information technology sector, CPL decided to adopt a very strong policy of looking after its employment candidates. "We felt candidates applying for jobs weren't being looked after by recruitment companies and I wanted to focus on providing a really good service to IT professionals."

The company put an emphasis on trying to coach people ahead of interviews, preparing curriculum vitae and generally responding to their needs. Ms Heraty believes it is now reaping the rewards of that exercise.

"That really stood us in good stead. People who were our candidates then are now our clients. We have grown alongside many of the indigenous companies such as Iona, CBT and Vision."

The IT sector is one of the fastest growth industries in the Republic and has accounted for a huge proportion of the total increase in employment in the past three years.

CPL employs 65 staff and has another 350 people working on contracts with more than 500 client companies. The company recruits a range of IT professionals from software engineers and project managers to managing directors for Irish and multinational companies.

Today she estimates CPL accounts for 20 per cent of total recruitment in the IT sector here. The firm has been profitable every year since its formation. In 1996, CPL reported pre-tax profits of £68,000 on a turnover of £2.7 million. This year, profits are expected to rise to £2.4 million with turnover up to £16.2 million.

Ms Heraty says CPL's journey to the stock market can only help the firm to grow and will also allow the staff who have built up the company to reap some reward. The returns could be substantial given that CPL is expected to be valued at £20 million on the stock market.

Ms Heraty and her husband currently own 98 per cent of the group. When the shares are floated, the couple will sell some of their shares to institutional investors in Dublin, London and Edinburgh, while CPL's staff will also get an opportunity to subscribe for shares at a special option price.

Ms Heraty and Mr Carroll are expected to retain about a third of the total shareholding each, with their total stake estimated at £13 million.

The company is in the final stages of a roadshow presentation to prospective investors and expects to be in a position to float the shares by the end of the month.

CPL will be the second Irish recruitment group to take a stock exchange listing, following the flotation of Marlborough Recruitment last year.

Both companies have been well positioned to yield the maximum benefit from the Republic's economic boom and are expected to continue to exhibit rapid growth over the next couple of years.

Due to strong demand for IT personnel, salaries have increased across the sector but companies are taking a fairly sensible approach on the issue, Ms Heraty says. "Companies are finding other ways of retaining staff."

Ms Heraty predicts much of the employment growth in the IT sector will be on a contract-basis. "Over the next 10 years there should be a big shift to contract workers. This is the future. Companies which look at adapting a flexible workforce will be the ones which gain a competitive advantage," she says.

"There is a marked change in the way people think about work. People no longer regard success in terms of climbing up the corporate ladder. Success now comes from personal development and from doing a job that you really want to do. This is particularly true of the technology sector. Sometimes people move for money but often for technology people it's not the major driver. They want to work on interesting assignments and in emerging technologies."

Given the pace of developments in technology, Ms Heraty acknowledges the skill shortages which now exist but insists they tend to arise for relatively short periods of time. "It's really a time lag between the time it takes people to get skilled up for new technology. There is a very strong technical workforce here so that tends to resolve itself over a relatively short time."

CPL shares are due to float on Dublin's Development Capital Market and London's Alternative Investment Market within the next two weeks.