Fidelity’s Sharon Walsh and Emer Guinane talk to us about their Galway-based roles and the benefits of working in IT in the westerly city.
Last year, we looked at the ever-growing tech scene in Galway and how it’s catching up with the likes of Dublin, Belfast, Limerick and Cork in terms of tech activity. The west’s cultural hotspot is quickly gaining ground with its tech ecosystem, boasting many opportunities for STEM professionals with a growing community of sci-tech employers in a variety of sectors from medtech to cybersecurity and IT.
To find out what it’s like to work as a STEM professional in this tech hotspot, we visited Fidelity Investment’s Galway office and spoke to Sharon Walsh and Emer Guinane to hear what they love about working in the county.
Transatlantic return
For Walsh, who holds the position of senior VP for technology, her career at Fidelity actually began in the US. Three years after leaving for the US on a one-way ticket in 1994, Walsh started working at Fidelity in Boston, where she held numerous tech-based roles and also acquired a business degree at Northeastern University.
In 2013, Walsh – who by this stage had started a family – decided to return to Ireland and took up a leadership position at Fidelity’s Galway location. “I was very fortunate that Fidelity had a presence here, so I joined the Ireland organisation and I’ve held several leadership positions with Fidelity here.”
In her current role, she supports Fidelity’s asset management organisation. Her duties involve running their technology portfolio while also communicating business deliverable progress. But what was it like to return to Ireland after so many years?
“When I returned in 2013, I didn’t really have a broad network here,” she says. “I had to obviously establish myself within the local organisation, but in order to do that I did get offered an opportunity to join a board here in Galway called ITAG.”
Innovation Technology AtlanTec Gateway (ITAG) consists of leaders from a range of SMEs, large multinational companies and start-ups that “foster the importance of technology and the work of technology within the region”.
To Dublin and back
For Guinane, Fidelity first turned up on her radar when she went to a careers fair while attending the University of Galway (formerly National University of Ireland or NUIG) as a master’s student. Guinane had previously completed a bachelor of arts degree there, with IT as one of her subjects.
“I ended up really enjoying IT as a subject and did a master’s in software design and development then in NUIG as well,” she says. When she happened upon Fidelity, she learned about the company’s Leap graduate programme and chose to enrol. She explains that as part of the Leap programme, candidates can choose a position in Dublin or Galway. Guinane, a Galway native, decided she wanted to try something different and chose Dublin.
“I spent six years up in Dublin, really enjoyed the time that I was there,” she says, “but I did know that I wanted to move back and be closer to family.”
Guinane, who now holds the position of senior software engineer at the company, considers herself lucky to be able to return to Galway while continuing to work at Fidelity.
“I value being really close to my family and a lot of my friends live back here, so being able to be here but also getting loads and loads of experience in a large company, like you can move around Fidelity and get lots of different experience in different areas,” she says. “I think it’s great that Fidelity offers the opportunity to tailor your career to the different stages of life that you’re at.”
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