Out of Office: New Diageo chair and Ted Baker in trouble

Welcome to the Business Post’s Out of Office, your daily round-up of the day’s business, tech, markets, legal and politics news.

Ciarán Cannon became the latest Fine Gael TD to announce his retirement from politics, blaming the “toxicity” that goes along with the job. Cannon, a former leader of the Progressive Democrats and currently the party’s spokesman on media, arts and culture, was first appointed as a senator in 2007.

While Cannon will soon be out of a job, John Manzoni will be starting a new one. Diageo has named the former senior British civil servant as its next chair. He will take over from the current board leader, Javier Ferrán, upon his retirement next year.

It came as hundreds of jobs could be at risk at upmarket UK clothes retailer Ted Baker, after it prepared to place its network of stores across the UK and Ireland into insolvency.

In the world of tech, Revolut announced it was going head-to-head with Jack Dorsey’s Square and SumUp by launching point-of-sales software for Irish SMEs.

Anthropic, the highly-regarded artificial intelligence company, is following in the footsteps of ChatGPT parent OpenAI in opening a new office in Dublin.

And Charlie Taylor examined whether plans for a national tech incubator based on the French model would actually work in Ireland.

Daniel Murray spoke to Tomás Sercovich, chief executive of Business in the Community Ireland, on his Five Degrees of Change podcast. You can listen here.

And finally, the Irish insulation maker Kingspan was accused of providing “incorrect, incomplete and misleading information” to the EU about its abandoned merger with Slovenian rival Trimo.

News in brief

* Markets preview: Central banks take centre stage

* Revolut takes on Square and SumUp with point-of-sales solution

* Only one in seven Irish people think climate change will impact them

* More options on way to house asylum seekers, junior minister says

* Freenow announces partnership with Meili for in-app car rental

What BusinessPost.ie subscribers are reading

* Gianni Matera named venture capitalist in residence at NovaUCD

* Freenow announces partnership with Meili for in-app car rental

* Anthropic follows rival OpenAI with Irish operation

* Fianna Fáil TDs raise tourism concerns as coalition finalises immigration strategy

* Ken Fisher: Rural Ireland has all the ingredients to become new Silicon Valley