About Fit Business

Background info on Fiona McLoughlin

A regular media contributor on business, consumer and property issues, Fiona has a wealth of marketing, management and digital media experience.
She is frequently listed as one of Ireland’s leading female entrepreneurs including features in Image Magazine and shortlists for the Irish Internet Associations Net Visionary awards.  
Her property sales website has been nominated for a Golden Spider and she has recently been shortlisted for the Network entrepreneur of the year awards

Having taken a break from her weekly hot property slot on the Ireland AM couch for the summer Fiona is about to return  with the Fit Business series / competition for start-ups on that will net the winner over €50,000 worth of prizes. In between she writes a weekly business advice column for the Daily Star.

Fiona started her working career as a nurse in University College Hospital Galway. Shortly after working as a volunteer in a Romanian orphanage she returned to NUIG to complete a degree in Law and Politics.  Winning awards for coming first in both sciences for every year of the degree, Fiona graduated head of her class with a double first class honours degree.  She continued her studies achieving top marks again for her Masters in PR, communication and advertising in Ulster University, Jordanstown.

Fiona subsequently worked as a Marketing Manager for one of Ireland s largest voluntary organisations. Rapid promotion to senior management followed as a result of her successful management of the nationwide re-branding of this charity.
Around this time, Fiona started to invest in the property market both here and abroad and eventually left to concentrate on her property interests.  It was while training with the creator of the staging/house doctor concept in the USA Fiona experienced first hand the practice of selling property privately, without an auctioneer.

In 2005 Fiona incorporated all of her legal, property, branding and staging expertise to develop Privateseller.ie. Benefitting from the support of a host of consumer champions including Independent Business editor Senator Shane Ross, the Irish Times Conor Pope and Entrepreneur Ben Dunne, her property website, www.privateseller.ie , is now Ireland’s largest private sales website.  A new way forward for selling property, Privateseller,ie has, amongst a host of media, most prominently featured on Prime Time Investigates, as a successful alternative to selling through an auctioneer in Ireland.  It has also been shortlisted for a Golden Spider Award

Over the course of the last 6 years Fiona has had extensive experience in setting up and developing a business online.  Describing herself as a “serial learner” she has a particular interest in new media and recently received distinction in her Diploma in Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation.  Fiona’s experience online is the focus of a High Potential Start Up project she is researching with Enterprise Ireland.

Background info on Paula Egan

Paula is a strategic and innovative entrepreneur with over 20 years experience at senior management level.  In that time she has successfully created, managed, owned, advised, built and sold her own and others business.

She is a graduate of University of Ulster, specializing in finance and of Dublin city University with an MBA. Winner of 2007 Ulster Bank sponsored Entrepreneur of the Year Award and also a keen member of several committees and boards in the commercial and voluntary space.

Starting out as a Finance Manager for Ireland with SMC Pneumatics,  a Japanese global PLC for nine years Paula was responsible for the Finance, HR, IT and Administration functions.  SMC grew to become a dominant Irish player in the pneumatic and robotic market.   The global organization allowed Paula develop knowledge in international strategy and she travelled extensively in Japan, US and Europe.    Implementation of Global planning, budgeting and reporting, Central European warehouses,  data mining,  global IT projects, consolidation of reporting, conversion to euro were projects that entertained and challenged her intellect.

In a very competitive sector Paula built  Celtic Careers a recruitment and career development agency with her business partner Deirdre Moore to become one of the leading recruitment companies in Ireland. She trained in human resources and qualified in psychometric and personality testing, has coached executive directors in career strategy and guided many successfully through high profile and public career moves.   The company serviced many blue chip multinationals and SME clients, had two offices, over 250 contractors and 36 in-house staff.  Having spent nine years in the recruitment sector and eager to work on other projects Paula sold her shares in Celtic Careers at the peak of its success.

Following 6 months off to enjoy her financial freedom Paula was never one to rest on her laurels.  She returned to her first love, finance, and re-launched CBS Comprehensive Business Services in 2008.  She has met and exceeded her targets for her first year and proves that businesses, new or old, can profit whatever the economic environment.

Though she has a tenacious focus on the bottom line Paula is fun and energetic and enjoys the one to one time with clients in their own environment.  As passionate about other business as she is about her own, clients have come to depend on her as a champion of their business.