Have a Coffee with…Brid O’Donnell

Name: Brid O’Donnell

 

Job Title: Employee Benefits Manager

 

How long have you worked with us?

Since mid-January 2023

 

Tell us a little bit about your role please

I sit on the People team and look after everything related to employee benefits. This includes pensions, health insurance and leaves such as maternity/paternity leave and bereavement leave. The day to day aspect of my role involves ensuring employees have access to and understand their benefits. I also spend lots of time on project work, this involves working closely with our benefits providers to ensure our benefits are kept up to date and meet the needs of the company as we continue to grow.

 

Give us the highlights tour of your career to date

  • My early career was a mix of HR and Finance roles, my first job out of college was working on the HR team at Team Aer Lingus. At the time they were the maintenance arm of Aer Lingus.
  • I took a year out to travel the world in my mid 20’s and then decided I wanted to focus on HR. I joined Google Ireland in 2003 working on the HR team. Google had just 40 employees in Ireland when I joined so over the course of the 16 years that I spent there I saw massive growth and change. I initially worked in recruitment, employee onboarding and general HR and then realised that I loved the area of employee benefits and specialised in this area. Over the course of my time at Google I managed benefits for most of Google’s EMEA countries and Canada and set up the onsite Wellness Centre in the Dublin office.
  • In 2019, I joined Block Inc (also known as Square) a US FinTech company. I managed benefits for all countries outside the US and again saw huge growth during my time there with the company growing from 6 to 21 countries in just three years.
  • Towards the end of last year I decided to take a 12 month career break to spend more time with my daughters while they still want me around! However this role with Viatel came up and I couldn’t let it pass me by.

What do you love most about working with Viatel?

I love that Viatel are an indigenous Irish company. The majority of my career to date has been spent working for US based companies so I love the change in approach that this brings. I’d love to see more Irish companies succeed and grow as Viatel is doing.

 

Describe yourself in three words

Empathetic, friendly, open.

 

Tell us something we don’t know about you

I once cycled down the world’s most dangerous road, the aptly named Death Road in Bolivia!

 

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