How did your dad influence you?

In March 1974 my old man, Padraig, announced that he was going to start a newspaper in order to campaign against the flooding problem which was besieging Tralee at that time. Me and my three brothers were sort of drafted in to do every job in the newspaper, from collecting money, to writing stories, to taking pictures. Those were very difficult times and we were competing with the most successful provincial newspaper in Ireland [the Kerryman]. So we had a lot of convincing to do to get people to accept that we were a credible alternative. When years later with Stockbyte I was up against very substantial competitors like Getty and Corbis, it absolutely mirrored what my old man was doing in the '70s.

What was his management style?

Well, firstly he was a bit of a creative genius. But he was also confident enough to empower other people. When I was 14, he put me in charge of distributing the paper. He had committed to his advertisers that the newspaper would be delivered free to every house in Tralee. So I came up with a community delivery solution which reduced our 7,000 drops down to 400. Being thrown in the deep-end is what brings out the best in people. Give people responsibility!

Is there anything in particular that you learned from him?

That there's nothing that's impossible. There are always plenty of great excuses why something won't work, but you can't allow them to stop you. It's all about tenacity.

So to sum upf At the age of 21, thanks to him, I had the equivalent of an MBA but with no real academic qualifications to speak of. We'd been through a lot in those seven years, so I was ready to take on the world at that point.

Jerry Kennelly will be speaking at the IMI National Management Conference on 26 April at the Marriot Druids Glen Hotel in Co Wicklow.

In conversation with Patrick Freyne