Mullingar native David Sharkey has returned from a career as a teacher and rugby coach in the UK and Australia to start Polaris, a global communications consultancy for business and sports leaders.
Polaris Teams founder Sharkey is a recent alumni of the Irish Government’s Back for Business programme.
The development programme, which is now in its 8th year, was created to foster and support entrepreneurial activity among emigrants recently returned to Ireland and is funded by the Irish Abroad Unit, Department of Foreign Affairs.
“What started as an idea to make character more prevalent in the development of young people has turned into a viable business that is global in reach”
The deadline for completed applications for Back to Business 8 is midnight on Thursday 16 January. For more information or to register your interest in receiving an application form, click here to apply.
A character-building exercise
David Sharkey, who is from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, left Ireland after completing a BA in History and English in UCD to train as a teacher and to test himself in the challenging environment of inner-city London schools.
“Had I not done Back for Business, I shudder to think of all the little milestones I’ve achieved already that I would have missed”
In all, he spent 15 years away from Ireland working as a teacher and rugby coach – in Sydney, Australia, and in London and Henley on Thames in the UK.
His journey into entrepreneurship in the field of internal communications for sports and business leaders sprang from his work as a teacher.
“As a teacher and coach, I was trying to develop what I call character coaching by finding ways in which you can bring values and characteristics to life,” he says.
“What started as an idea to make character more prevalent in the development of young people has turned into a viable business that is global in reach. I quickly realised that the use of themes and stories was a very effective way to bring some of these characteristics and values to life for groups – initially sports teams and now business groups as well.”
David set up his UK business, Team Architecture, in 2022 while he was still working as a teacher. He wrote up some of his experiences of putting his theories into practice, and his writing resonated with people in the world of professional sports.
“La Rochelle and Ronan O’Gara were particularly interested in what I did. They asked me if I would design a theme and work with them. Off the back of that, I’ve worked with intercounty GAA teams, Irish Women’s Hockey, Arsenal women, Aussie Rules teams and Rugby Australia,” he says.
David and his partner returned to Ireland and settled in Bray, Co Wicklow, at the start of this year after their son was born. “There was a huge draw to return to Ireland for personal reasons after Tomás was born,” he says.
“It certainly has been an adjustment having been away for so long. I had changed. I was a father. I was engaged. I was setting up a company and Ireland had changed. Coming to terms with all those things was daunting and exciting to the same extent.”
David set up his Ireland-based company Polaris Teams Limited in April this year and has left teaching to dedicate himself to the business on a full-time basis. “Polaris Teams is a global communications consultancy for business leaders and sports leaders. Ultimately, we help leaders to communicate with purpose, so they make communication a competitive advantage,” he says.
In the short term, David plans to bring Team Architecture clients across to Polaris Teams where appropriate. Team Architecture will continue to exist for UK clients. He then plans to develop his sporting client base before establishing himself more firmly in the business world in terms of keynote speaking and working with middle and senior figures within business.
David says the Back for Business programme was integral to the business he has created.
“I came in with one company and came out with a very different one. My Lead Entrepreneur, Thomas Ennis, saved me an inordinate amount of time in that he helped me to quickly establish what it was I was trying to do and to get a sense of whether it was worth doing. Had I not done Back for Business, I shudder to think of all the little milestones I’ve achieved already that I would have missed,” he says.
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