HMI President, Richard Dooley has welcomed the appointment of Cathal Magee as the new CEO of the HSE.
He said that both he and the HMI were looking forward to working with the new CEO, who came with a formidable management reputation, extensive leadership skills and an in-depth knowledge of the health services.
Cathal Magee is a former Managing Director of Eircom’s €1.3 billion portfolio of retail businesses that serve the consumer, business, corporate, and government markets. He was also interim Chief Executive of the Group for six months to July 2009.
Previously he held other senior management posts in Eircom as Managing Director, Eircom Ireland, Managing Director, Business Transformation and as HR Director.
As well as his extensive commercial and business operating experience, he has been a central leadership figure in the extensive transformation and restructuring of the company. Early last year he concluded a major breakthrough agreement with the trade unions to enable the next phase of restructuring of the business.
Prior to joining Eircom, Mr Magee worked for the National Australia Bank Group in the UK and Ireland. He has also worked in a Business Transformation and HR Director capacity with Bord na Mona from 1988 to1992 involving business and operational restructuring. His early career was in the Health Service.
He holds a first class honours degree in Management from the IMI and an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently a Non Executive Director of VHI Healthcare and the EBS Building Society.
Speaking at the AGM of the HMI, outgoing President, Denis Doherty said:
“I have known Cathal since he joined the North Western Health Board in 1972 and it was apparent even then that he was exceptionally talented and destined to reach the top. We worked closely together for a number of years and I saw at first hand his ability to convince others to join him in what he was doing. He’s a good listener who gets to the kernel of issues quickly; he’s a good communicator who can develop a shared understanding of issues and he is particularly good at achieving results.
“Cathal Magee ticks all the boxes for the demanding role of CEO of the HSE. He knows and understands the health services; he has played leadership roles in managing change in large, complex organisations, in banking, in Ireland and the UK, in a commercial semi-state company and in a telecommunications company and he has considerable experience of corporate governance as a non executive director.
“I believe he will provide strong leadership that I know managers will respond to. He will expect his managers to perform to the highest standards and he will treat everyone fairly. He understands the value to be gained from investing in developing staff.
“In a sentence, he is a very strong people person and that characteristic will be appreciated by staff and patients”
Mr. Magee takes over as CEO on September 1 next.
