Kerley, also the co-founder of the financialsoftware company, says the transition from being boss of a private technology company to one listed on AIM and IEX has been relatively painless. "For me personally it's more of the same only it's in the public domain, " he says.

If journalists or analysts were given to rating executives on their performances at such events, the reviews would undoubtedly be favourable. It helps that the script was a strong one. Kerley's supporting players were double-digit sales and earnings growth over the first six months of the year and a favourable outlook for the second half.

Norkom, which sells software to the banking and financial-services sector to help prevent fraud and other financial crime, posted a 41% increase in revenue to 11.5m in the halfyear to September. Its earnings rose 31% on the same period last year to 2.1m.

Investors have seen Norkom shares appreciate by 22% in the three months since the company floated. At the current price of 109p in London, Kerley's 7.3% stake in the 130m company is worth just under 9.5m. If he has his way, it will be worth substantially more than that within two years.

Over that period, says Kerley, a clear leader will emerge in Norkom's market and become the supplier of choice for financial crime-prevention software to the world's banks and financial-services institutions.

The size of the market is difficult to divine but the numbers being talked about by analysts are huge. One recent report estimated that the financial services sector will spend 40bn on fraud prevention and compliance software this year. Niche players such as Norkom are only targeting a small percentage of that spend but that still means there are ostensibly hundreds of millions of euro to be played for.

Kerley is confident Norkom will be the number-one player in that small, but potentially lucrative niche. Kerley, it must be said, is confident in general. He is confident about the deals the company has done to date. "If you look at the banks we have, they are the top banks in the world, " he says, pointing to a client list that includes names such as Credit Agricole, Halifax Bank of Scotland and HSBC. He is confident of growing the company's business in the crucial US market.

He doesn't "hope" for Norkom's presence to grow substantially in the US . "I expect it to, " he says.

He is confident about the people he has around him. "You'll see the talent in that team to take Norkom to another level, " he says of the current management team. And he is confident enough in Norkom's prospects that when asked which companies are the biggest threat to the company in its sector, he refuses to name any of its competitors, saying that to do so would "give them credence".

It is a confidence doubtless borne from his success in steering Norkom through some tricky turns over the past few years. When he co-founded the company in 1998 with Killian Colleran, Ray O'Donnell and Colm Crossan, Norkom was focused on customer relationship management (CRM) software: software which uses advanced mathematics to analyse data about businesses and their customers to help predict buying behaviour and thereby increase revenue. The company raised over 35m to chase that opportunity and planned an initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq in 2001 which was pulled due to weak market sentiment as tech stocks plummeted in value.

Norkom then felt the pinch as the global economy turned down and large corporations reigned in their investment in technology such as CRM software. The company reported losses of 20m in March 2001 and began an extensive restructuring programme that saw over 100 staff lose their jobs. In the midst of that restructuring effort, Kerley and his management team also decided to shift the company's focus. They reasoned that its core expertise, analysing data to detect patterns and predict behaviour, could be directed at the area of financial crime.

The company's fortunes began to change.

The financial-crime package impressed a host of blue-chip banks, the business wins racked up and Norkom moved back into the black. The comeback was completed with an IPO on London 's AIM and Dublin's IEX in May valuing Norkom at over 100m.

That Kerley managed to stay in the hot seat to direct the turnaround says much about the confidence shareholders, including entrepreneur Denis O'Brien and 31% shareholder Trinity Venture Capital, have in him. The Irish technology sector is rife with examples of company founders who were replaced at the helm when shareholders wanted an "operations guy" rather than a "visionary". Think John McGuire at Trintech, Chris Horn at Iona or Neil Wilson at Datalex.

Kerley acknowledges the trend, saying that often a company needs "different CEOs" at different stages of its development. "Some CEOs are able to bridge those gaps and step through and I believe I've been able to do that, " he says.

The company has retained both its management and most of its longtime backers since going public. The 21m raised through the flotation will be used to fund growth and finance acquisitions. Kerley says the company has a number of potential targets in mind to help build its presence and its customer base . . . especially in the US . . . and hopes to do at least one deal within the next 12 months.

Kerley says many companies of Norkom's size come to a point where they have to choose "scale or sale", deciding to either raise funds to expand or cash in their chips. Norkom has definitively chosen the former, he says. "Why would we sell? There is that innate ambition within Norkom. We're not tired. We don't want to cash out at this stage."

The Irish tech sector has produced many a promising company which has done just that.

Kerley says it is understandable that many Irish entrepreneurs have sold out rather than proceeded with their plans for world domination. "I do think the barriers to creating a global leader have been difficult in the past, " he says. A company in San Francisco could achieve in three to four years what an Irish company would take twice as long to achieve, according to Kerley. With greater availability of capital, experienced management, and banking and legal professionals with in-depth knowledge of the industry, the grass was much greener stateside. Those key resources are now available in much greater quantities in Ireland, however, Kerley says. He refers to it as "an ecosystem that if properly brought together can compete on a global basis". "The raw materials exist but there has to be a level of ambition and that's only starting to evolve."

CV
NAME: PAUL KERLEY
Age: 42
Background: Graduated from Dublin City University with a degree in Information Technologies in 1995. Cut his teeth in the technology industry with Amdahl Corporation, which is now a subsidiary of Fujitsu, and System Industries. Spent five years as a consultant with Capgemini, building its consultancy business in Ireland. Founded Norkom in 1998 with Killian Colleran, who is currently the company's chief technology officer, and two other entrepreneurs . . .Colm Crossan and Ray O'Donnell.