The Big Interview

Jo O’Donovan, Eir director of mobile: ‘GoMo hit 250,000 in 16 months – that was ferocious’

The Ringsend native on how she went from studying chemistry to working in telco

Jo O’Donovan: ‘In the first 16 months we hit 250,000. That was ferocious, you hadn't seen anything like that in the telco space in Ireland ever before, [it was] beyond even our expectation’. Picture: Fergal Phillips

Growing up in Ringsend in the 1980s and 1990s, Jo O’Donovan remembers there not being a phone in her parents’ house.

The recently appointed director of mobile at Eir remembers how she would have to arrange for friends to call her at a specific phone box at particular time and might still have to wait outside while someone else took a call.

“When you got to the phone box there might be somebody else in ...