Waterford city and county is fast becoming a healthcare hotspot. It offers career opportunities as well as quality of life, all within easy reach of the capital
Moving to the sunny southeast allowed the sun to shine on Ruth Beadle’s career.
Today, as head of global supply chain at healthcare company Sanofi, she can see why Waterford is a great place for employers too.
Beadle grew up in Dublin and studied commerce at UCD, taking international business and logistics as her specialism.
She graduated in 1991 and secured a place on a logistics graduate programme with a major UK drinks company, the first ever female to do so.
She went on to do a master’s degree in business at Nottingham Trent University and, more recently, took the Institute of Directors exams. “Lifelong learning is a passion,” she says, which is fitting for someone who sits on the governing body of the South East Technological University (SETU).
Beadle worked in the UK for a number of years but when she had the first of her four children, she wanted to raise them in Ireland. She came home in 1999 but wasn’t so keen to return to Dublin.
“We really wanted something that offered a bit more of a balanced lifestyle,” she says of herself and her English husband. “At that stage the Celtic Tiger was booming and if we had worked in Dublin then the chances are we’d have been living in Naas or Carlow and commuting,” she explains.
“With Waterford, we found somewhere that was compact, with great natural amenities, very close to mountains and beaches. And my father is from Waterford, so I already knew it.”
A good move
It proved a good move. “It has been super to be honest. All my children have done really well with the youngest just gone to university at UCC. The quality of education they’ve received at primary and secondary has been first-class. Because these aren’t private fee-paying schools, you also get a really diverse mix of pupils so the classroom reflects society. To me, this is one of the most valuable parts of school life.”
Beadle joined Sanofi in 2007 and worked her way up through the ranks of what is one of the world’s biggest healthcare companies, to take one of its most senior global positions, a massive achievement.
“Our purpose at Sanofi is to chase the miracles of science for our patients worldwide. The company is headquartered in Paris, we have people in 100 countries, and employ close to 90,000 worldwide,” she explains.
The company’s Waterford facility has over 800 employees while Sanofi also has a smaller commercial office in Dublin’s Citywest.
“Our footprint has been growing in Ireland. Our site at Waterford, which I previously led, is one of the most strategic sites globally for Sanofi,” says Beadle.
“It was set up here in 2001 and, since then, has moved from being a tableting facility to becoming a sterile filling facility and has now transformed again to manufacture monoclonal Antibodies, so it’s a very agile site.”
A healthy county
Waterford is home to a growing cluster of healthcare companies. “When I started with Sanofi, we already had Bausch + Lomb and Teva here. Now, the sector has grown significantly to include Horizon, West Pharma and Jabil Healthcare,” she says.
“Within a 30-mile radius, we have Haleon in Dungarvan, MSD in Carlow and Boston Scientific in Clonmel as well as Abbott in Clonmel and coming to Kilkenny.
“It means that if you work in this sector, you can have multiple opportunities over the course of your career without relocating. That’s very important for people. It’s also very important of employers. For Sanofi, it means we can attract qualified people with various levels of experience and seniority. We also have lots of different career paths so we say you can have many careers under one roof with international opportunities because of Sanofi’s scale.”
For Beadle, a huge part of the appeal of working at Sanofi is having a career that makes a positive impact. Her team help ensure people get the medicines and vaccines they need when they need them.
Waterford’s location, and the ease of accessibility it enjoys in terms of motorways, ports and airports, is part of the reason so many companies in the sector have chosen to locate here.
It is also part of its appeal for Beadle personally. “We’ve a lovely quality of life here. My journey to work is just 10 minutes. I have worked in various places where the commutes are long and unpredictable. There’s a lot to be said for a short commute,” she says.
The family lives in the city and, while house prices are rising in Waterford, they are still “some way behind Dublin,” she points out.
More employers are recognising its appeal too. “What brings companies to Waterford is talent, both in terms of graduates from SETU and also experienced professionals who have worked in the existing healthcare companies here,” she says.
Working for good
Waterford saw a lot of people who were working in Dublin come home during the pandemic and stay because the quality of life is so good. It’s the same reason why companies choose to locate there.
“I’ve hosted a number of companies brought in by the IDA who are doing tours of Ireland and they are always interested in what I’d call “soft side” questions. So, Waterford scores well on its heritage, festivals and beautiful natural amenities,” she says.
“Accessibility is very important in my line of work and the M9 motorway has really helped. With Waterford, you get the benefits of a small and cosy community but you don’t feel that sense of being remote, whether in relation to people or product.”
But eminent “liveability” will only take an employer so far. “While amenities may attract businesses to a place, for a business to stay is all about performance,” she explains. “The site itself has to do well.”
“Within Sanofi, our Waterford site is extremely high performing and can compete with other sites internally, which is why it attracts the newer technologies.”
From both a corporate and a personal perspective, “Waterford has been really good to us,” she says.
Read more here if you think your company want to make the move to Co Waterford
