The first episode of The Leaders’ Room season four features Martin Cotter, senior VP of global vertical business units and president of EMEA at Analog Devices. This series is created in partnership with IDA Ireland.
We’re back with season four of The Leaders’ Room podcast, where we once again got to know the leaders of some of the most influential multinationals in tech, life sciences and innovation, as well as getting insights into their leadership styles and the high-tech trends they see coming down the line.
In the first episode of season four, we speak to Martin Cotter, senior VP of global vertical business units and president of EMEA at Analog Devices, about his journey to his current role, the critical nature of talent for innovation, and Ireland’s strength as an ecosystem for collaboration with other leading industry players.
Headquartered in Massachusetts, Analog Devices has operated in Ireland since 1976. Today, it is the European hub for the organisation, and has a 2,000-strong team here, mostly on the engineering side, says Cotter.
Talent is everything, he adds, in an innovation-based company like Analog Devices. And this is reflected in the organisation’s investment in higher education in Ireland. It has invested alongside Stripe in the Immersive Software programme, and the iBio programme with Eli Lilly – both in University of Limerick.
Analog Devices is a semiconductor company at its core, but it is also very much at the coal face of transformation being driven by new technologies in industries such as healthcare, automotive, industrial robotics and communications, says Cotter. While his organisation has long worked with machine learning and data measurement, he is excited about the potential in AI developments.
“It opens up a whole new world of possibilities, particularly when it comes to critical areas like healthcare, energy and the health of our planet,” says Cotter, who adds that health of people and health of planet is very much core to the organisation’s philosophy.
Having begun as an intern at Analog Devices back in 1984, Cotter has risen right through the ranks and is today US-based, but he is bullish about Ireland’s ambition and strengths and he says we are in a great position “to spring into the next wave of innovation”. It’s a nice positive note on which to kick off our new season.
We’re grateful to all our interviewees again this season, for taking the time out of busy schedules to come into the studio and share their insights and their intelligence with us. And a big thanks as ever to our partners IDA Ireland who make this series possible.
The Leaders’ Room podcast is released fortnightly and can be found by searching for ‘The Leaders’ Room’ wherever you get your podcasts. For those who prefer their audio with visuals, filmed versions of the podcast interviews are all available here on SiliconRepublic.com. We’ll be back in the new year with a brand new episode.
Check out The Leaders’ Room podcast for in-depth insights from some of Ireland’s top leaders. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
