Roisin Keown is the Founder & Executive Creative Director of the brand, creative and production agency The Brill Building.
One of Ireland’s leading creatives, Roisin is one of the small but growing numbers of female entrepreneurs running a creative advertising agency. She lives in East Clare with her husband and two sons.
Q 1- How does your normal day begin?
4 mornings out of 5, I’m up and working by 5.30/6 am to get ahead of the day before the school routine begins at 7.30 am. I love this time – peace and quiet and time to get organised, thank goodness for the scheduled email! At 9 am I reward myself with the first coffee of the day.
Q 2- What are your biggest daily challenges?
The main part of my job – the creative challenge, finding solutions and creating original ideas that will get my clients and their brands noticed – is the fun part. The hard part, my biggest daily challenge, is finding the space in among the meetings, the admin, the planning for that free-thinking.
Q3- What do you love most about your job?
Two things: ideas and talent.
Creatives are addicted to ideas. It’s a great buzz when you come up with something you know is good, and an even better buzz when you have steered it through months of creation to seeing it successfully out in the world.
In my job, you get to work with all sorts of extremely talented people, photographers, directors, illustrators, other creatives and inspiring business people and entrepreneurs. I learn something from them all.
Q 4- What do you do to relax?
Sleep. If I’m really lucky, a two-hour hike breathing in the scenery of Lough Derg.
Q 5-Favourite staycation destination in Ireland and why?
My favourite staycation destination has to be the place we have chosen to live 365 days a year. We moved from Dublin city to near Killaloe in East Clare 3 years ago, and I’m discovering more about the mountains, the lake and the landscape every year. It’s unspoilt, it’s quiet, there are easy mountain walks and a hundred islands to explore. There are guided kayaking, paddle boarding and wild swimming with the UL Adventure Centre.
This summer we stayed with friends at the Derg Isle Adventure centre in Mountshannon, camped there and rented boats to explore the lake with a picnic on Holy Island. It was the highlight of a strange year.
The second favourite would have to be my homeplace in the beautiful Glens of Antrim.
Q 6-Favourite holiday destination worldwide?
So many. Anywhere you can jump from a boat into deep and warm water is the dream. We go to the quieter spots in Ibiza & Formentera with the children quite a bit. I’d love to return to South America one day, to explore Patagonia.
Q 7-Favourite Business motto?
I have a couple.
“Fail, fail again, fail better” – which is of course not a business motto but a Samuel Beckett quote so it’s about the struggle of creativity and how perfection is unattainable but you must still aim for it.
“It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be” – about the value of hard work and resilience determining success
Q 8. Advice for young business entrepreneurs
Just start.
And if you’ve started, keep going.
You already have all it takes.
