Irish tech firm Konversational to generate additional €5m revenue via US expansion
The company sees the move as the 'natural evolution' of the business, having built a 'strong foundation' in Europe. The US expansion comes less than 18 months after
setting up offices
in France, Germany and Switzerland.
'Expanding into the United States is a significant milestone for us and one that we have been building towards since opening our Dublin headquarters less than five years ago,' said co-chief executive John Gilleran, hailing the US market as providing a 'tremendous growth opportunity' for the Irish firm.
Mr Gilleran co-founded the business with another former Accenture employee Richard Guy in 2020. The consultancy business is now one of the largest companies working with ServiceNow, a digital workflow company, in Britain and Ireland and employs 80 people. The two founders run the company's Dublin and London offices respectively.
READ MORE
The US expansion is being supported by Enterprise Ireland, whose regional director for the Americas, Aidan McKenna said Konversational has been 'hugely successful across Europe'.
Mr McKenna said the US is the 'number one market internationally for digital tech exports'.
Konversational Consulting Ltd, the company behind the Irish-based entity, recorded a €1.37 million profit in the financial year ending December 2024, according to filings with the Companies Registration Office.
This came following a loss of €366,000 in 2023. The filing lists 15 employees, including its two founders as directors, and held debtors in excess of €3.3 million.
In 2023, Konversational
signed a €3 million technology deal
to enable IT solutions provider Ergo to use artificial intelligence throughout its cloud-based IT services platform. At the time, the deal was said to be a first in the Irish market.
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Irish Times
25 minutes ago
- Irish Times
US ICE agents took half their workforce. What do they do now?
They gathered in a conference room for the weekly management meeting, even though there was hardly anyone left to manage . Chad Hartmann, president of Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha , pushed a few empty chairs to the side of the room and then passed around a sheet totalling the latest production numbers. 'Take a deep breath and brace yourselves,' he said. For more than a decade, Glenn Valley's production reports had told a story of a steady ascent – new hires, new manufacturing lines, new sales records for one of the fastest-growing meatpacking companies in the midwest. But, in a matter of weeks, production had plummeted by almost 70 per cent. Most of the workforce was gone. READ MORE Half of the maintenance crew was in the process of being deported, the director of human resources had stopped coming to work, and more than 50 employees were being held at a detention facility in rural Nebraska. Hartmann (52), folded the printed sheet into tiny squares and waited out the silence. 'So, this gives you a pretty good sense of the work we have ahead of us,' he said. 'It's a wipeout,' said Gary Rohwer, the owner. 'We're building back up from ground zero.' [ Deportation anxiety in Irish America: 'I would have a clean slate before travelling' Opens in new window ] Chad Hartmann, president of Glenn Valley Foods, at his office in Omaha. Photograph: Erin Schaff/New York Times Trump target It had been three weeks since dozens of federal agents arrived at the factory's door with a battering ram and a warrant for 107 workers who they said were undocumented immigrants using false identification – part of a wave of workplace raids carried out by the Trump administration this summer. The president's advisers had set a target of 3,000 arrests a day, shifting the focus of enforcement away from the border and into the heart of the US economy . Trump had vowed to pursue 'bloodthirsty criminals' during his campaign, but he had also promised the 'largest mass deportation in history,' which meant agents were rounding up hundreds of immigrants from restaurant kitchens, avocado groves, construction sites and meat processing facilities, where most of the workforce was foreign-born. Rohwer (84), had always used a federal online system called E-Verify to check whether his employees were eligible to work, and Glenn Valley Foods had not been accused of any violations. Rohwer was a registered Republican in a conservative state, but he voted for a Democrat for the first time in the 2024 election, in part because of Trump's treatment of immigrants. He couldn't square the government's accusations of 'criminal dishonesty' with the employees he'd known for decades as 'salt-of-the-earth, incredible people who helped build this company,' he said. 'There are some jobs Americans don't want to do,' Gary Rohwer tried explaining to one caller. Photograph: Erin Schaff/ The New York Times Most of them had no criminal history, aside from a handful of traffic violations. Many were working mothers, and now they were calling the office from detention, asking for legal advice. Their children, US citizens, were struggling at home and in some cases subsisting on donations of the company's frozen steak. [ Significant rise in Irish people seeking State help to avoid US deportation Opens in new window ] 'I'm still furious about what happened to our people, but we have to keep the machines running,' Rohwer said. 'We need more people trained and ready to go.' He looked out into the lobby and saw three women filling out applications. Glenn Valley paid well, with an average hourly wage of almost $20 (€17) and regular bonuses, but the work was repetitive and demanding. Employees from Mexico and Central America stood on a manufacturing line for 10 hours a day, six days a week, and processed hundreds of pounds of meat through dangerous machinery in a cold factory. Ever since videos of the raid spread across social media, Rohwer had answered dozens of calls from strangers who accused him of 'stealing American jobs'. But Nebraska was experiencing a work shortage, with only 66 qualified workers for every 100 jobs. Almost every one of the company's new applicants was also a Hispanic immigrant. 'There are some jobs Americans don't want to do,' Rohwer tried explaining to one caller. 'We're caught up in a broken system.' The department of homeland security had accused many of the company's former employees of working under stolen IDs, which E-Verify didn't always catch if the ID number itself was valid. When Rohwer met with officials after the raid to ask for a better system, they told him to keep using E-Verify. One agent gave the company a hotline number to call for hiring questions. Hartmann tried it once and waited on hold for 57 minutes before giving up. 'They said the only thing we can do is verify, verify, verify,' Rohwer said. 'But we're already doing that,' Hartmann said. 'How do we avoid ending up in the same situation?' Hiring process Their first step was to rebuild the hiring process, so one morning Hartmann met in his office with the company's newest employee, Alfredo Moreno. It was Moreno's second day as the human resources director. Chad Hartmann, president of Glenn Valley Foods, with Alfredo Moreno, his new HR director. Photograph: Erin Schaff/ New York Times He still didn't have an office and he'd never seen the factory floor, but Hartmann had given him a stack of dozens of applications to review. 'How many people did you lose total?' Moreno asked. Hartmann looked at his computer and tried to count. 'They arrested 76, which doesn't include the ones who were too shaken up to come back,' he said. 'How does that happen if you E-Verify and do everything right?' 'I think I can help you with that part,' Moreno said. He had spent the past 25 years hiring for pork plants and chicken factories across the midwest, and he'd shown up at Glenn Valley unannounced a few days after the raid, convinced he understood their problem. Over the years, Moreno had reviewed hundreds of applicants through E-Verify, checking their ID and social security numbers against federal records to confirm they were eligible to work. In his experience, E-Verify was good at checking numbers, not people. The government maintained that Glenn Valley employees had been using IDs that were stolen. One number belonged to a nursing student in Missouri, who lost her student loans as a result of the identity theft. Another came from a disabled man in Texas, who could no longer get his medications. Moreno told Hartmann that the only way to truly prevent fraud was to scrutinise IDs with black lights and magnifying glasses to make sure they weren't fake, and interview each potential employee in person. He had memorised regional accents and studied the geographies of Central America, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. He estimated that about half of the people he interviewed for meat processing jobs lied about their documentation. The ICE raid happened on June 10th, a Tuesday morning. Photograph: Erin Schaff/ The New York Times 'I ask where they were born, what town, where they travelled,' Moreno said. 'Does the person on paper fit the person in the chair? I don't want to say I interrogate, but I ask very specific questions without discriminating.' 'Yes. I like that,' Hartmann said. 'Because we can't go through this again. Honestly, it was very traumatic for everyone involved.' The ICE raid Hartmann started to tell Moreno about that Tuesday morning, when the company was humming through one of its best months in 12 years. More than 130 workers walked into the factory at 7am. All five manufacturing lines started moving at full speed. Hartmann was taste-testing a new meat product with the sales team when he heard a knock on the front door. He walked into the lobby and saw several agents in tactical vests, carrying nightsticks and wearing bandannas to cover their faces. [ Irish tech worker detained by immigration agents in US for 100 days: 'I didn't know when I was getting home' Opens in new window ] His first thought was that maybe one employee had got into trouble, but then he glanced outside and saw several government vans, a drone circling the roofline and dozens more agents surrounding the property. 'We're going to be busy here,' one of the agents said. They moved past Hartmann into the factory, shouting instructions in Spanish, telling workers to come out with their hands up. Most complied, but a few dozen people started to scream and run. A group of five women clambered up stacks of packing pallets. Other workers enclosed themselves inside industrial freezers, only emerging after they lost feeling in their arms and hands. Hartmann saw a maintenance worker named Marvin Zepeda (37), scamper into the rafters with his tool belt. Zepeda was responsible for cleaning offices, and his colleagues had once nominated him for employee of the month because of his ability to laugh and tell jokes even while checking mousetraps. Now Zepeda squeezed into a crawl space in the ceiling and resisted orders to come out, holding agents off by displaying his box cutter and other tools. An agent shot him with a Taser. Zepeda pulled the probes out of his leg, retreated farther into the crawl space and threw tools in the direction of the agents. They shocked him again and threatened to send in a dog. Finally, a factory manager went into the crawl space, calmed Zepeda down and helped persuade him to surrender. Agents restrained his wrists and led him out of the factory. Zepeda spotted Hartmann in the lobby and flashed him a smile and a thumbs-up as the agents walked him toward a bus with the windows blacked out. 'The whole thing just gutted me, and obviously I had it easy,' Hartmann told Moreno. 'It's terrible for everyone,' Moreno said. 'I've seen whole companies go under after a raid. The supply chain stalls. Beef prices go up. Consumers pay more.' 'The ripple effects,' Hartmann said, nodding. He pulled up a roster of the company's former employees and started to read through names: Ruiz. Gonzalez. Hernandez. Rodriguez. 'That's the part I keep thinking about,' Hartmann said. 'What happens to these people?' The son of a meatpacking worker who has been detained since a major raid at her plant in Omaha takes a call from her. Photograph: Erin Schaff/ The New York Times Detention centre It had taken three days for Elizabeth Rodriguez's family to figure out where she was. Her children had seen the raid on Facebook and watched videos that showed Rodriguez (46), being marched on to a bus in her factory smock and hard hat. Her eldest son, Omar (23), searched detention records and contacted her co-workers, police and local politicians. 'Where are they taking her?' he kept asking, until his mother finally called from a detention centre across the state. 'This call will be limited to 15 minutes,' a recording warned, and his life had been revolving around those phone calls ever since. Now, Omar felt his phone ringing again in his pocket and checked the number. 'Mom Jail,' the caller ID read. He answered and waited for the line to connect. His parents had spent the past 25 years in Omaha, building a life with such care and stability that to Omar it started to feel 'normal, even stable,' he said. His parents met in Mexico and eventually crossed the border together on foot in their teens. They married in Nebraska, found work and bought a small house on the outskirts of downtown where they could raise their four children, all US citizens. A few months earlier, Omar had encouraged his mother to hire a lawyer to help her explore a path to citizenship. She had a 'perfect case,' the lawyer wrote: No criminal record. Long-standing ties to the community. A steady job with good reviews. She took on extra hours to pay legal fees and nursed sores on her feet. It wasn't in her nature to complain, not even now, about the raid, the detention centre or the lawyer she could no longer seem to reach. 'How are you?' Omar asked in Spanish, once Elizabeth came on the line. Her children crowded on to the couch and gathered around the phone. 'I'm fine,' she said. 'Tell me about all of you. Are you eating? Sleeping?' 'Don't worry,' Omar said. 'Everything's OK.' This was how they survived these calls: each side reassuring the other even as they continued to unravel. Omar was working the graveyard shift at a call centre to help pay for groceries. His two younger sisters, aged 17 and 13, were trying to cook for the family from their mother's recipes. Omar's younger brother, aged seven, was waking up at night short of breath, wheezing and choking, until Omar took him to the emergency room. Doctors said he was suffering from panic attacks. He had never spent a night away from Elizabeth, and he didn't understand what it meant to be detained or deported for lacking legal status. The family had decided it was best to tell him that his mother was still at work. 'I'll be home soon,' she told him now. 'When?' he asked. 'I don't know yet,' she said. 'I'm trying my best.' 'You have five minutes remaining on this call,' the automated voice said. Omar took the phone so they could talk through the logistics of her case. She had declined the government's offer of $1,000 (€859) and a free plane ticket to self-deport back to Mexico. Omar was trying to come up with $5,000 (€4,293) to pay for her bond so she could be released to her family while her deportation case played out in the courts. They had all begun drafting letters to submit on her behalf. Omar's oldest sister, 17, had written about how her mother had supported her through episodes of depression, helping her find a therapist and switch schools. 'I am still alive because of my mother,' she wrote to the judge. 'Now that she's gone, it's like I'm breaking a little more every day. I fear what will happen to us if she can't come home.' 'You have one minute remaining,' the automated voice said. 'Are you still there?' Omar asked. 'Yes. I'm here. I love all of you,' she said, and the children took turns saying goodbye. 'Everything is going to work out,' Omar told her, but the line was already dead. Daisy Hernandez, a manager at Glenn Valley Foods. Photograph: Erin Schaff/ The New York Times Skeleton crew The factory was empty. The machines sat silent. Back orders continued to pile up as a skeleton crew arrived at 7am to restart the manufacturing lines. Hartmann walked through the lobby, handing out coffees and greeting eight new employees who were reporting for their first day. They had been interviewed and hired, but they couldn't start until they were authorised to work through E-Verify, so a manager named Daisy Hernandez took their IDs and I-9 forms into her office and started punching in the numbers. None of the eight new hires were US citizens. They had submitted paperwork based on green cards, alien registration numbers, temporary visas and work authorisations. Hernandez tried to log into E-Verify, but her password didn't work. She tried again, and the account was locked. 'How's it going?' Hartmann asked, as he stopped by her office, but the answer was implied: the new employees were playing games on their phones in the break room. The manufacturing lines were falling further behind. Hernandez called Glenn Valley's former HR manager for help, and a few minutes later Hernandez was logged back into the account. She typed a new set of names into the same system and checked the first employee. 'The information entered did not match DHS records.' 'Down to seven,' Hernandez said. She set the application to the side and moved on to the next. 'Alien authorised to work,' it said. Cruz. Rivas. Lopez. Dominguez. 'Authorised to work,' it said, and even if the system had failed them before, it was still what the government suggested they use. Hernandez printed out a batch of company IDs and brought them into the break room, where seven new employees were waiting for their final words of training. 'Thanks for being here in our time of need,' Hartmann said, as he glanced around the room, registering all the people who were still missing. 'We want to thank you for joining our family.' A manager briefed the employees on food safety and handed out white smocks and construction hats. Then he opened the factory door to a rush of cold air and the clatter of machines. The workers lined up alongside a company slogan printed at the entrance. 'Together we achieve more,' it read, and they stepped on to the factory floor. This article originally appeared in The New York Times . An employee at the Glenn Valley Foods meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska. Photograph: Erin Schaff/ The New York Times
Irish Times
42 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Housing Agency raised salary for incoming CEO by over €23,000
A pay increase of more than €23,000 was approved for the new chief executive of the Housing Agency after negotiations between two government departments. The post was meant to be filled with a starting package of €161,593 a year, the first point on the Assistant Secretary salary scale of the Civil Service. However, the Housing Agency said their preferred candidate had been paid a higher salary than that in his previous role in the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). They argued that their new CEO, Martin Whelan, should start at €184,852 a year, the fourth and final point on the agreed salary scale. The Department of Public Expenditure said that, based on his 'substantial knowledge and experience' and his previous salary, they would have 'no objection' to the higher package. Internal records detail how the Housing Agency was left without a CEO when their previous boss, Bob Jordan, resigned in September last year after a three month notice period. An email from the Department of Housing said: 'Given the short lead in time to Mr Jordan's resignation, there is an urgency in commencing the recruitment process. 'It may be a case that an interim CEO will be required for a number of months as it is imperative that the work and consequential outputs of the Housing Agency is uninterrupted while the substantive CEO process is ongoing.' The Department of Public Expenditure said in response that it had no objection to a person being appointed on an acting basis if the need arose. Department officials said at the time that the full-time appointment should be made on the Assistant Secretary level which begins at €161,593 per year and with no perks permitted under Government policy. In November, the Housing Agency said they had found a candidate for the role but submitted a business case to seek a higher starting pay rate. It said that while Mr Whelan was 'enthusiastic about the role', he had 'requested a review of the remuneration package'. 'To address this and to reflect the level of experience and expertise Mr Whelan will bring, the agency proposes appointing him at the top of the Assistant Secretary scale, €186,701.' It said a committee led by the chairperson of the Housing Agency fully supported it and believed it was a 'prudent and necessary investment'. As part of the business case, the Department of Housing said they agreed that Mr Whelan should start on the higher rate of pay. There were further discussions with details sought on how many people had applied and how many were considered suitable for the role. In mid-November, the Department of Housing said it was hoping for a final decision as the matter was now 'very urgent and impacting the business of the agency'. On November 29, an email from the Department of Public Expenditure said they had closely considered the case and the candidate's previous experience. 'Taking into account his current salary in the NTMA, [we] would have no objection to the Housing Agency negotiating a salary up to the fourth point of the Assistant Secretary scale,' said the message.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
EU-US trade deal: Any future US tariffs on pharma exports to be limited to 15%, EU insists
The European Union is confident that any future US tariffs on its exports of pharmaceutical products would be limited to a 15 per cent rate, under the terms of the recent agreement, senior officials have said. The final terms of the deal were worked out during a meeting between European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and US president Donald Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland on Sunday. The deal will lock in tariffs of 15 per cent on most EU imports to the US , but prevent the prospect of an economically devastating trade war. The US has been preparing to levy tariffs on the EU pharma industry, which Mr Trump previously threatened could be at cripplingly high rates of up to 200 per cent. READ MORE The industry has escaped any tariffs to date, but the Trump administration has been planning to hit the sector with specific levies. Ms von der Leyen, who negotiated the final part of the deal with Mr Trump, said the agreement would cap any future pharma tariffs at a blanket 15 per cent rate. The two sides agreed that no tariffs would be charged on imports of aircraft, certain chemicals and some agri-food goods, though the finer details of what agricultural products will benefit from these exemptions are still to be worked out. Challenge for Ireland Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said there is 'no doubt' Ireland is in a challenging position in relation to tariffs but that the agreement does bring 'some clarity'. Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke. Photograph: Conor Ó Mearáin / Collins Photo Agency Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland on Monday, Mr Burke said the EU was four days away from 30 per cent tariffs, which would have been 'significant', while the Government is awaiting more details to emerge. Mr Burke said there would be a number of 'carve-outs' for particular sectors such as aviation, agri-foods and spirits. He said the Government was concerned about the 'stacking mechanism', which refers to the cumulative effect of multiple tariffs applied to the same imported product. 'All of those areas have been called out for separate carve-outs, so we have to see what that will look like and what will that amount to on paper, and that's where the devil is going to be in the detail,' he said. However, businesses are more cautious about the deal. Lobby group Ibec said it represents a 'substantial burden' for many industries, and the most exposed sectors will require Brexit-style supports. 'Our message to the Government, as it was with the 10 per cent tariff, is that the most exposed sectors will require support similar to the interventions provided as a response to Brexit,' he said. Irish whiskey industry The EU and the US sides are to continue negotiations on the finer points of detail, including possible tariff exemptions for several sectors. It is understood spirits are one area on that front where the commission feel they are making progress, which would be welcome news to the Irish whiskey industry, a big exporter to the US. Eoin Ó Catháin, director of the Irish Whiskey Association, told The Irish Times he hopes the deal can 'provide the framework' for a return to zero-for-zero trade in spirits. 'The EU and US government agreed to this zero-for-zero arrangement in 1997, and since then our shared sector has experienced huge growth in value to the benefit of economies and communities on both sides of the Atlantic,' he said. Jameson whiskey: sells over 1 million cases annually across the Atlantic. Photograph: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg 'It is therefore logical to return to this. As it currently stands, Irish whiskey and drinks producers face a 10 per cent tariff when exporting to the USA – our biggest market. 'This, combined with a weakened dollar, has placed significant pressure on our distillers, and some have unfortunately had to close their doors. A return to zero-to-zero would be a major help to these exporters.' He added he was hopeful 'a mutually beneficial arrangement and the removal of tariffs can be secured'. Dairy Industry Ireland director Conor Mulvihill said confirmation exports will now be subject to a single 15 percent tariff rate with no additional stacked duties was 'particularly important' for Irish dairy products such as butter. 'While the simplification of the new tariff structure, as set out in the deal, will make it easier for the sector to manage, we remain concerned about the broader implications of any tariff border on the island of Ireland,' he said. Conor Mulvihill 'The dairy industry operates on an all island basis, with integrated supply chains and cross-border trade in raw milk, ingredients, and finished products. 'Any divergence in tariff treatment between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland could introduce complexity, cost, and uncertainty for processors and farmers alike.' Deloitte Ireland chief economist Kate English said the EU 'was wise to pick their battles and to choose certainty'. 'Remember, this 15 per cent is not on top of existing custom duties – a good example we saw this weekend was Kerrygold butter, which is already subject to a 16 per cent custom duty, so will see little difference from yesterday's decision.' Daniel Mulhall, who served as Ireland's ambassador to the United States from 2017 until 2022, posted on X that the deal 'does not look like a great outcome for the EU'. Irish Ambassador to the US Daniel Mulhall speaking at the 2019 Conference In response to his post, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the deal will mean 'fewer EU exports to the US and higher prices for Americans'. He added: 'The only thing it's better than is no deal at all and that's only if it sticks.' Paul Sweetman, chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland, said a 15 per cent tariff level is 'not an optimum trade environment' and will be a 'significant burden' to businesses already managing a 10 per cent tariff. 'However, the agreement does bring a new stability and allows business decisions to be made with greater certainty,' he added. Meanwhile, European governments and companies reacted with both relief and concern to the trade deal, acknowledging what was seen as an unbalanced deal but one that avoided a deeper trade war. France prime minister François Bayrou said Europe had submitted to the US on a 'dark day' for the union. 'It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission,' Mr Bayrou posted on X. German chancellor Friedrich Merz rapidly hailed the deal, saying it avoided 'needless escalation in transatlantic trade relations'. German exporters were less enthusiastic. The powerful BDI federation of industrial groups said the accord would have 'considerable negative repercussions', while the country's VCI chemical trade association said the accord left rates 'too high'. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also expressed support for the agreement, calling it 'sustainable.' Market reaction European shares advanced to a four-month high on Monday, led by gains in pharma and semiconductor stocks. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 0.7 per cent. Most regional bourses were also in the green, with Germany's blue-chip Dax rising 0.6 per cent and France's Cac 40 gaining 0.8 per cent. UK's FTSE 100 added 0.1 per cent. Euro area government bond yields edged down on Monday, while investors assessed their bets on European Central Bank monetary easing. Markets saw an additional 25-basis-point rate cut as likely, but pushed back the timing, assigning a 65 per cent probability for the move by December and an 85 per cent chance by March 2026.
