A global thought-leader, working to bring harmony and success to your organisation
A bit about me
I’m originally from County Roscommon. My work in rugby has taken me across the world, as I work with International organisations and leaders to increase organisational clarity and energise productive leaders.
Though I’ve spent many years working on improving the position of women in rugby, I started my career as a psychiatric nurse, specialising in child and adolescent mental health and cognitive behavioural therapy. I completed a graduate diploma in child and adolescent mental health, working all around Dublin before moving to Limerick as a clinical nurse specialist. While doing that, I was also doing a part-time masters in UCD in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. That was the career path that I was committed to, that I loved, but as that was going on, a parallel career path was also taking shape.
Through a somewhat happy accident, I was invited to try rugby and that started a whole unexpected journey to become a rugby player for 12 years, followed by a role refereeing where I was honoured with the Allain Rolland Award for performance of the year in Leinster.
This led to my involvement in committees which drives acceptance and engagement in the women’s game, ultimately becoming the last President of the Irish Women’s Rugby Football Union, integrating it into the IRFU. I was honoured to be appointed the first Women’s Development Manager with World Rugby, a role I did for 7 years increasing female participation globally from 4% of the playing population to 25%. Later I became the first Irish female representative appointed to World Rugby Council.
The Growth of Women’s Rugby: Su Carty How one Irish woman helped turn rugby into a sport for both sexe
In 2018 I was voted Irish Woman of the Year for my work in advancing Women’s Rugby on a global scale. For 5 years now I have been providing a suite of consulting and coaching programmes which drive winning performance in business.
It’s been a fantastic opportunity for me to combine my many passions, for mental health, sport and business, providing insight and guidance which positively influence the difference between winning and losing.
In 2020 my career took a u-turn, with Covid19 , my skills as a psychiatric nurse were needed in the Irish Health Service. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons between the bond and togetherness in the hospital and in rugby. In such a difficult time for everybody, the whole hospital, and indeed the country, came together to form this shared commitment to tackle the virus. Everyone has a role and everyone has each other’s back and even in these circumstances, there’s a palpable positive morale.