The serial mover

At Enterprise, promotion often means relocation. Lisa O’Riordan believes moving is at the heart of her success.

I studied at the University of Limerick and I decided to work at Enterprise because I realised promotion from within would help me to be successful and get on.

I started at the Cork city branch in June 2012 and in March of the next year I got my first promotion to management assistant.

I knew that if I gained more experience it would help me to get to Assistant Manager faster. I could see the Galway branch was performing well and I wanted to learn more about what they were doing.

I knew someone there who had been at my College, and he asked if I’d be interested to move. At first I said no! I’m from Cork originally so a lot of people thought I was mad to move. Then I thought, why wouldn’t I do it?

So I moved up there. The move was good. I lived with two girls who I’ve become really good friends with. I made a lot of friends, and it’s a nice city.

I was there for only five months when an assistant manager job came up in Kilkenny. This is the middle of nowhere really – and so I never contemplated moving there. I thought I would move to Dublin or back to Cork.

I looked at the branch and at first I thought – no, I can’t. Then I thought about it more and I realised I hadn’t worked at a smaller branch before. They work very differently so I thought I would learn more. I applied and got the job starting there in October.

Then in January 2014 a new location opened at Cork Airport and a branch manager position came up. I thought, I won’t get that in a million years! But I’ll have a go anyway.

I realised when I was in the interview that all the different experiences I had from the different locations I’d worked at made it a lot easier, and that is why I think I was successful in getting that job.

The more branches you work in, the more people you work with, the more you learn.

You learn totally different lessons. Not just Enterprise lessons, but life experience. Everyone has different qualities and ways of doing things. I’ve had three branch managers and now an area manager, and all of them were good at different things. You can pick the best and worst and mould yourself.