“I have been very impressed at your very obvious and genuine commitment to diversity,” was one of Kinsella’s, um, questions to the then Future and Higher Education Minister.
After one of Harris’s answers, Kinsella said: “I agree 100pc.” Later during the love-in he told Harris: “I completely agree with you.” When the minister said he wanted to put in place a scientific and research structure that could advise the Government, Kinsella cooed: “That’s fantastic.”
The accolades did not all go the one way. “I think it’s a brilliant question,” Harris marvelled, after one of Kinsella’s incisive probes.
Nothing that Kinsella has written of late will cause any difficulties for him on Merrion Street either. On May 23, he declared that the Government had been “reinvigorated by Simon Harris”, and in his last published piece in The Currency before getting the adviser gig, Kinsella even had something nice to say about civil servants.
Noting that “much of our daily discourse reads as if the world doesn’t matter”, he observed that, “luckily our civil servants are less affected by insularity”.
And did he have an example of this impressive broadmindedness? He did. “The monthly briefings on the national finances by the country’s chief economist”, John McCarthy, “always have a few slides on developments in our main export markets,” Kinsella enthused. The economic outlook looks very cordial indeed.
Rachel Reeves became the first woman to get the keys to No 11. Photo: PA
Different strokes with finance chiefs
Two new politicians have been put in charge of the public finances in Ireland and Britain in the last few weeks. Their backgrounds could hardly be more different.
Rachel Reeves (45) is the new chancellor of the exchequer. She studied economics at Oxford, got a master’s from the London School of Economics, then joined the Bank of England. Later, she worked for three years in the retail arm of HBOS bank, before being elected an MP. At Westminster, she was on the select committee for business, and elected its chairperson in 2017. She was shadow pensions minister, and then shadow chancellor. She brings well over 20 years of relevant experience to her new job.
Jack Chambers, by contrast, has about two weeks’ worth — the length of time he spent as junior minister in the Department of Finance in the summer of 2020.
Which is not to say the 33-year-old is unqualified — he’s a medical graduate, after all. But clearly he’s been given the Department of Finance job for Fianna Fáil reasons rather than for his economic qualifications and experience.
Of course, Reeves could prove to be a disaster — and she faces a more formidable challenge than Chambers, whose main job is to keep other ministers’ mittens out of the overflowing cookie jar.
Still, the appointment of Reeves strikes us as how government should be done. Chambers’ elevation smacks of a political stroke.
Tech firm bids to unveil X maligners
The founders of a Swiss-based tech company went to the High Court in Dublin this week to find out who is behind four accounts on Twitter/X that have been waging a “malicious smear campaign” against them. Their company, Vinivia, was launched in 2020, but has been getting a lot more attention since it launched a live-streaming app in America last April.
Luis Ruelas and Teresa Giudice. Photo: Getty
Among those involved in the launch was Luis Ruelas, a businessman who is married to Teresa Giudice, a star of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Their wedding was broadcast on the Bravo channel in 2023, and they have since been regulars in media gossip columns.
Their finances are a source of fascination, since Giudice once served 11 months of a 15-month prison sentence for fraud. Among the recent stories about Ruelas has been an accusation by a party planner that he didn’t pay her $300,000 bill for the US launch of Vinivia in a timely fashion.
Ruelas has made some big claims for Vinivia, including: “We’re gonna take over TikTok.” Such hyperbole may have been what attracted the detractors. The High Court in Dublin has been told the four Twitter accounts started up in May and June.
Nalac co-founder and director Siobhán O’Connell
All new venture for ‘Business Plus’ duo
I see that, only a month after leaving Business Plus magazine, Nick Mulcahy and Siobhán O’Connell are cracking on with their next venture. The pair, who co-founded the magazine in 1998 and sold it to Daily Mail publishers DMG Media two years ago, have just registered a new firm at Companies House. It’s the somewhat hard to pronounce Snoetica Ltd, with the pair of them as directors.
The nature of the business hasn’t been spelt out, but judging by their social-media activity, we imagine it’s going to be a consultancy that helps entrepreneurs and organisations to build their profiles on platforms such as LinkedIn.
Is Consello up in the air on adviser?
Tipperary native Declan Kelly may have been caught napping at the Superbowl in 2020, but he has been on full alert when it comes to signing up celebrities for the board of his financial-services advisory firm Consello.
Tennis player Serena Williams, American football star Tom Brady, soccer’s Gary Neville, and former Nike vice-president Mindy Grossman are all listed as “senior management” on his company’s website.
The board member attracting most media coverage in America, however, is Steve Mollenkopf, a “senior adviser” for Consello but also chairman of Boeing.
The aerospace company recently bought its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, and declared that among the advisers on the deal was Consello.
Declan Kelly’s outfit was already working for Boeing, as he is reportedly helping it find a new CEO. This is regarded as somewhat odd, since Kelly had been advising the last Boeing CEO, Dave Calhoun, on his communications strategy.
The New York Post has been particularly cruel to the Tipperary man over his Boeing link-up, quoting a “source who has known Kelly for years” as saying: “I don’t think he knows about planes, but he knows about disasters.”
The more serious issue concerns Mollenkopf being on both sides of the fence.
The Financial Times said Consello’s role in the Boeing CEO search, and its advisory work on the Spirit AeroSystems purchase, raise questions over what disclosures were made to fellow Boeing directors about any potential conflicts.
Boeing replied that Mollenkopf’s advisory role with Consello has been noted in the last three proxy statements within his bio.
You’d wonder if all the media attention is worth the hassle though, and whether there might soon be a vacancy on the Consello board for a senior adviser. Celebrities only need apply.
