EY industry finalist: Eoin Goulding, Integrity360

Eoin Goulding is the chief executive officer of IT security firm Integrity360.

Goulding had a taste for business from a very early age, selling bicycle alarms to his classmates while still in school.

He left school in 1996 and set up his own PC and server business which he ran for five years until the effects of the dotcom crash kicked in.

He moved on to work in a sales role for American IT company, Align Communications, until it made a decision to move out of Ireland in 2005.

Seeing a gap in the market, he set up his second business venture, Integrity360.

Integrity360 offers a full 360 degree security service to its enterprise clients, securing their networks, infrastructure and their information.

This year, Integrity was one of only five Irish companies to be ranked in the Inc. 5000 Europe List, recognising the fastest-growing private companies of all sizes in Europe.

Goulding is also chairman of content marketing company 256 Media and a non-executive director of business book publisher Management Briefs.

What was your "back- to-the-wall" moment and how did you overcome it? The most difficult time I've had in business was starting out with Integrity.

With little to no money and no external investment the only way for the business to move forward was to get finance to fund it myself.

I did this by negotiating with a client to pay us upfront for services.

Not only did this set us up financially but it meant that we could go after other deals with a solid reference client. Without that the business would never have got off the ground and we certainly wouldn’t be where we are today.

We’re extremely lucky to still work with that client ten years later.

To what extent does your business trade internationally and what are your plans? As well as our Dublin headquarters, we also have offices in London, Glasgow and Birmingham.

The UK turnover accounts for approximately 20 per cent of our company total, which is remarkable considering we’ve only been trading there for just over two years.

We have clients all over the globe and so we have firm intentions to expand further over the next number of years.

Within the next two years I hope to have at least one additional international office with another on the cards.

What is the hardest thing you have ever done in business? The hardest thing is letting the business consume other areas of my life.

Working late nights, weekends and while on holidays is vital in order to drive a business forward but is challenging with a family and sacrificing family time is always tough.