In Conversation with Peter Farrell C

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
My idea of perfect happiness is being able to do the things I love the most and being around the people I love. Perfect happiness for me is having a complete and happy family life, it is when my children are well, healthy and with a good disposition, doing well and achieving all their goals, never being in need or want of anything and the only tears I shed would be of joy.

2. What’s your favourite holiday memory?
My favourite holiday memory is Christmas and the smell of the Christmas turkey coming home from visiting relatives on Christmas day.

3. What are you reading? Would you recommend it?
Wounds: A Memoir of War and Love by Fergal Keane. A family story of blood and memory and the haunting power of the past. It is a family story of war and love, and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present. I would recommend this book.

4. Which talent would you most like to have?
The ability to learn anything and absorb information as easily as I can breathe. If someone could, by reading a book once or by observing someone do something, learn how to do that flawlessly, or to listen to someone speak and be able to recall it word by word.

5. What do you consider to be your greatest professional achievement to date?
I think one of my greatest professional achievements is as a problem solver. I have the ability to see a situation from different perspectives and I can get my work done in the face of difficult obstacles.

6. What practice area do you specialise in and why does it matter?
I collaborate with clients to bring projects to a successful conclusion. After a long number of years in this industry and with a lot of experience I have developed a very good communicative working relationship with colleagues and clients.

7. What is the quality you most admire in a leader?
The quality I admire in a leader is foresight, performance, and character. They have vision, courage, integrity, humility, and focus, along with the ability to plan strategically and catalyse cooperation amongst their employees. They are authentic, trustworthy, and reliable. They have strong moral principles and don't show favouritism amongst employees.

8. What’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve ever been given?
Take criticism or “feedback” for what it is: a gift given to you to make you better at what you do.

9. Name your favourite building (international only + why?)
The White House. Because this residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban and was modelled on Leinster House, Dublin.

10. Tell us something not many people know about you.
I am a bookworm and a fanatical reader of World War 2 and the Irish War of Independence.