It would not be fair to say that I have had one mentor throughout my business career. If I go back to my college days when I was in the college of commerce in Rathmines, there was a Turkish professor there called Teb"k Dalgic. He taught me that to constantly look at different sources of information and to question everything that you are doing.

There is always more then one framework that can work in an organisation and it you can pick up on the latest trends and patterns in business by looking at all the different areas. I would have used that philosophy right throughout my career. Then I would always listen to what Dr Gareth Jones and Gerry Robinson have to say. They are the best management thinkers around.

However, if there was one person who I worked with who I would say was the best leader I ever came across it was Larry Ellison of Oracle.

I was only the Irish sales director for Oracle and was a very small part of a huge multi-national company, yet you could feel Larry's presence in the company every single day. He wasn't a mentor in the sense that I would have gone to him for advice but as someone who set an example to follow, he was unbelievable.

What was he like to work under?

It really was amazing. I would have only come across him a couple of times a year but he seemed like he was always in the room. His drive towards whatever the next company goal was is something I really have not seen paralleled with anyone.

Every time he spoke you just felt motivated to go out and achieve. It was really remarkable. Larry was never afraid to take hard decisions.

Without being a management guru but he executed all his plans to the enth degree. You just had to listen to him to understand how strong his convictions were. He created this huge achievement-orientated culture around him and he empowered everybody around him to go out and achieve but you were always accountable within the company. If you weren't achieving you just moved on and you would not want to stay there. There was never any time taken up with internal con"ict. It made life very exciting.

What did you admire about him the most?

His communication skills were unbelievable. When he got up to speak about something, a business strategy maybe, you were totally and utterly convinced he was right. I remember him giving a speech on the internet in the early '90's at a time when most business people were afraid of it. He wanted to grab it and make it his own. He saw the potential in it straight away and every time he made a play, he bet the bank and won. He rarely made a mistake and it was always about moving on to the next thing. We were always, always moving on. Life was rarely, if ever, boring in Oracle.

Would you like to emulate him?

I could only hope to. I am working in a very different area now here in Vodafone that requires a very different management style but, yes, I did learn a huge amount from him.

If I could take some elements of what we were doing in Oracle and apply them to Vodafone's needs I'd be very happy.

In conversation with Jim McGrath