Earlier this year, Maureen O’Sullivan, Registrar of Companies for Companies Registration Office (CRO) in Ireland, stepped down from the EBRA Board after four years of dedicated service. Throughout her time with EBRA, she was a trusted and respected voice, helping to strengthen EBRA’s influence and establish the Association as the leading network for business registries across Europe.
We caught up with Maureen to reflect on her time with EBRA, hear about her career journey, and discover her standout moments from the past four years.
Hi Maureen, thanks for chatting to us. Let’s go right back to the start. When did you first join the Companies Registration Office (CRO) for Ireland?
I first joined the CRO back in 1992 and stayed for about 18 months. I then spent a number of years in various parts of our parent Government Department and returned to the CRO in my current role in 2015.
Tell us more your career path, which led you being the Registrar of Companies for the CRO.
I started at the lowest Civil Service grade and advanced to my current grade. My parent Department is responsible for employment and industry and over the years I have worked in a wide variety of areas such as HR, Labour Force Development, Company Law, Industrial Relations and Environmental issues, among others.
What would you say has been the biggest shift at CRO during that time in terms of priorities and focus?
The major shift in the CRO in the last 10 years has been the move to mandatory electronic filing for most of our submissions. As a result, we now have an electronic filing rate of 96%. This has changed the nature of the work for our staff who have to spend less time on data entry and now have the opportunity for more interesting work such as contributing to the integrity of the register.
You became an EBRA Board member in 2021. Tell us about how you balanced this role with your role at the CRO.
It can be tricky at times to balance the roles given the level of commitment that a Board member has to give but it was very worthwhile and of course there are synergies so a lot of issues that we would come across at Board level are also ones that I would encounter in the day job. Overall, I found my time on the Board to be a very worthwhile experience.
In the EBRA working groups we see that registries across the world experience similar challenges. How has your participation in EBRA helped the CRO, or how has CRO helped other EBRA members?
Participation in EBRA has been very helpful to the CRO. While we are all experiencing the same issues, it is often by meeting colleagues and discussing particular aspects with them that we can share ideas about how to approach them.
The working groups in particular are very helpful as we get an early view of forthcoming legislation which helps when discussing it with our Departments at home. There are numerous instances where working group meetings have highlighted subtleties of legislation that might not have been obvious until we started to discuss it in detail.
As a direct result of participation in working group meetings we in CRO have forged links with different jurisdictions who face similar issues and have been able to exchange information and swap experiences which is very helpful for everyone.
As a Board member, you got to see the mechanics of running a global Association. What’s been the most interesting thing you’ve learned during your time as an EBRA Board member?
Given that in my role I deal with company directors all the time and I know the theory of the role of a Board member/director, it was very interesting to see that working in practice and to see the various processes and procedures that running an Association such as EBRA demands.
The role of Board member is a very responsible one and all of my colleagues on the EBRA Board take that role very seriously.
What’s been your proudest achievement as an EBRA Board member ?
I have enjoyed all my time on the Board, but I think that my proudest achievement was hosting the Beneficial Ownership Working Group in Dublin in 2022.
What opportunities do you think lie ahead for EBRA in the coming years?
I think that the decision as part of the Strategy to expand membership to different register types and geographically makes this a very exciting time for EBRA but I think the main opportunity is to forge links with the EU Commission so that Registers, through EBRA, can have an opportunity to comment at an earlier stage on proposals.
The Registers are the ones who have to implement these proposals and it is better to be able to contribute at an early stage than to try to implement something that may have been designed without the perspective of the operational experts.
As an EBRA Board member, you’ve had the opportunity to meet colleagues from across the globe. What’s been a stand-out moment, or visit, for you, and why?
My role on the Board provided opportunities to visit many interesting places, some of which I might not have visited otherwise. Each time I was struck by the efforts the hosts made to welcome us and showcase their country or city.
A standout for me was the Board meeting in Iceland last September. I stayed on afterwards and had a chance to explore a little bit of that fascinating country but of course I only scratched the surface and will have to go back to see more.
We’re sure we’ll still see you around but one last question for now, if you had one piece of advice for our newest Board member, Rodrique Engering, what would it be?
From my point of view the most important part of the Board’s work is that we all work together for the good of the Association and not think only about our own jurisdiction so in my time on the Board that is what I tried to do and that is the advice that I would give any new Board member.
