Globetrotting lifer now top of the company ladder

WILDGEESE: EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD: Liam McCarthy - President and chief operating officer, Molex in Chicago

“THERE WAS no great master plan behind anything I did,” says Liam McCarthy, president and chief operating officer of US electronics firm Molex, of his career trajectory.

Joining Molex’s plant in Shannon in 1976 at the age of 20, his 35 years with the company has seen him travel around the globe and to the top of the ladder.

Graduating with a degree in commerce from UCD, he recalls the jobs market in 1976 “wasn’t great” and was getting worse by the early 1980s. Hearing about a cost and management accounting opportunity at Molex, he took a shot at applying.

The company, a leader in the design of electrical and fibre optic interconnectors and switches for the telecom, computer, medical and military markets, had been in Ireland for five years at the time.

Describing himself as “young and eager enough” to investigate how the explosion in computing could be used to streamline the company’s systems, by his mid-20s, the Cappamore, Co Limerick, man found himself in Japan, working on a global systems project for the company.

“There weren’t too many foreigners in the suburbs of Yokohama then,” he recalls. “Japan wasn’t as cosmopolitan as it is now but the people were tremendous.”

Returning to Shannon to implement (globally) the costing system he had designed, he was appointed as materials manager, overseeing logistics, warehousing and procurement. When, in 1989, the company offered him and his wife Olive, a fellow Molex employee, the chance to move to Singapore, the couple embraced it and, with their two-year-old daughter, moved East. “It turned out they needed help in materials management and in IT in Singapore so both of us moved at the same time – she was head of IT for Molex in the Asia-Pacific region and I came in as materials director for Molex Singapore.”

A planned two-year stay turned into nine years with stints in varying roles for McCarthy before he was appointed general manager of Molex Singapore, overseeing 600 employees in what was the largest connector company in the country. The couple had two more daughters while there and McCarthy describes Singapore as “easy to live in and a great place to bring up young children”.

His next move was to Chicago when Molex appointed him as president of its Data Comm division for the Americas in 1998.

“It was a great opportunity. It was a sizeable division that was growing rapidly and I was working with big customers like IBM and Cisco,” he recalls.

But having been abroad for 12 years, by 2001 the couple had a hankering to move closer to home. Appointed vice-president of operations for Molex Europe, McCarthy worked out of Munich, commuting to Ireland every week, where he was delighted his children got to spend five of their school years and time with their grandparents. But just when he thought they were settled, opportunity came knocking again. In 2005, McCarthy was asked to move back to Chicago to become president and chief operating officer of the company he had joined as a graduate. “I was fortunate to find a company early in my career where I could learn, grow and experience what is involved to succeed in terms of global business,” says McCarthy of his 35-year career with Molex.

“I have been lucky enough to be part of that journey with Molex, all over the globe.” He credits the support of his family for allowing him to take opportunities as they arose. “I’ve been very fortunate, my girls have been great to cope with all the change . . . though if I was to say we’d do another move now, they’d kill me.” Being married to someone who had worked at the company also helped: “If you say you are doing this or that, Olive understands because she worked here.”

McCarthy says plant rationalisations at Shannon and elsewhere in the past four years were “difficult to do . . . but at the end of the day, the company now has the footprint to go forward”.

That the Shannon facility last year celebrated 40 years makes McCarthy proud. “Forty years in Shannon is a big deal. People talk about these companies coming in and out of Ireland but Molex has been there a long time and we’ve made it through a lot of transition.” With 39 plants around the world and finishing its financial year in June with almost $3.6 billion (€2.8bn) in revenues, McCarthy says that while the last few months have seen the whole industry slow down, Molex has a strong product pipeline. Though the market is soft, the company is winning a lot of key customers.

When it comes to the emigration experience, he can list several Irish colleagues who, starting in Shannon, have moved to senior roles with the company in India, China, Europe and the US. “There’s a great sense of adventure in Irish people. They are eager to take on challenges and they do it well because they have that spirit of exploring.”

With 60 per cent of the company’s business now in Asia, his role brings him regularly to China, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong – though there is still a grá for home.