EE501: Mentor Moment: Áine Kerr - You Don’t Have to Choose One Path

Welcome to this week's Mentor Moment. Today is with award-winning journalist and serial entrepreneur Áine Kerr. She's one of the founders behind Storyful, which was later acquired by News Corp. She has an incredible track record in both journalism and business. If you've ever felt trapped by an either/or decision, one career path, one identity, one version of success, Áine reframes this completely. Here is your mentor, Áine Kerr.

Uh, so I've had what I call a squiggly career, a phrase borrowed from amazing author who's based out of the UK. But, um, so I've been the teacher, the journalist, the broadcaster, the accidental entrepreneur, uh, the board advisor, the lecturer. I've done a lot of different things. I've worked for the platforms, I've done the startups, and probably here m- more than ever at age 43, I know what the thread line is now. Like, I knew at age 15 I wanted to be a teacher and I wanted to be a journalist. I was really clear on that. And I knew at 15, and I worried even then as a 15-year-old self, that there was this binary choice, 'cause in my secondary school you had to pick your Leaving Cert subjects before your Junior Cert and with no transition year. So I remember being that kid at 15 thinking, "Oh my God, what if I get this decision wrong?" And thinking it was this, this or that. And I was very lucky at 15, I have an uncle in journalism, Frank McNally, the Irish Man's diarist in The Irish Times.

Oh, yeah.

And he will say it's the only time he's ever given me advice, and it happens to be the only time then I did take his advice, and it's probably the only time in life I had a plan and it worked out. And he said to me at age 15, uh, "If you wanna do both, go and do teaching first because you're gonna have this holistic degree, psychology-

Mm

... sociology, philosophy. You're gonna get out in the world and work with kids, but also work with parents. You're gonna have this life experience that will fuel your journalism, and education may be the thing that really is the bedrock of your journalism. Whereas if you do it in reverse and do journalism first, you're not gonna have that life experience that's going to give you the credibility to really kind of find your way in journalism and have a specialist subject." And that is what I did. So I went off at age 17, became a teacher, went St. Pat's out in Drumcondra, and after two years took the career break, very short-lived career break, 'cause I did-

I was gonna say-

... the masters in journalism

... can you, can you call it a career break after two years?

No. And, you know, and I remember at that point, my parents always knew I was gonna do both.

Okay.

So it wasn't a surprise to them when I'd taken the permanent pensionable job out in Drumcondra, and even those two years teaching fifth cast girls, I used to go off in the evenings, leave Corpus Christi National School in Drumcondra, and go around the corner up to the Northside People Newspaper to start putting a portfolio together, and worked for free for a long time, but I loved it. Like, I learned my vocation upstairs in the Omni Centre where Seamus has just recently done her Euro country video. Uh, and the Omni Centre is where