Stewart KennyCo-founder Of Paddy Power Became A Therapist
STEWART KENNY, the co-founder of Paddy Power, was the man almost single-handedly responsible for turning betting from a backroom pastime into a modern professional business.
In 1986 he pulled off a legendary business coup. After selling Power Leisure to Coral for £3 million, he reopened in direct competition to the British bookie within days, to the incredulity of Coral. The Paddy Power brand was born.
Since standing down as chief executive of Paddy Power in 2002, Kenny has pursued a very different career trajectory and he is now a qualified psychotherapist.
So how did the move from bookie to psychotherapist come about? “I promised myself that I’d do things before I was 50 – retire, and make a trip to Tibet and I’m pleased to say I did both.”
On returning from Tibet – a trip fuelled by his lifelong interest in Buddhism – Kenny qualified as a psychotherapist.
“I did seem like a fish out of water,” he recalls. “Business is very different from psychotherapy. Whereas business is all about results, psychotherapy is about the process, the minutiae of people’s lives.”
He compares the role of psychotherapist to that of Columbo, the TV detective who appears to ask the obvious questions but ultimately gets the answers.
Recently Kenny began a course in business and life coaching, a discipline that will merge his skills. Intensely private about his charity work, he is a former board member of the Simon Community and is on the board of the Immigrant Council of Ireland.
Kenny (58), who divides his time between Dublin and Cork, is still involved in business. He is a backer of start-up company micksgarage.com and is still involved with Paddy Power at a non-executive level. But for the man whose career in the betting industry can be traced back to his school days when he ran a bookie business at Glenstal Abbey, the industry has changed enormously.
“I was very much a two-man hustler. Today it is entirely different. Paddy Power is a serious international plc, with operations all around the world. It really is a changed business.”
SUZANNE LYNCH