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Caoimhe Duffy, Project Brewer for Guinness 0.0 on a career that combines expertise and innovation
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Bringing a curiosity and a love of collaboration to her role, she has thrived in Diageo’s culture of opportunity and trust in young leaders.
Caoimhe Duffy’s role as Project Brewer at Diageo sees her working on production of Guinness 0.0. Managing multiple batches at a time, each at a different stage, it’s a precise, technical process that takes two days longer to brew than Guinness, and involves 400 quality checks – 100 more than its alcoholic counterpart. “You’re ensuring that the stages are progressing as they should be,” Caoimhe explains. “You’re ensuring that the relevant quality checks are being called, checking those results, and monitoring the process as a whole, with the end goal of meeting demand.” It also requires collaboration with various other teams to ensure everything runs as it should.
The importance of mentorship
It’s a role with a lot of responsibility, and Caoimhe has gotten to where she is thanks to hard work, with the help of some important mentors along the way. When she was studying Food Science and Innovation at TU Dublin Grangegorman, Caoimhe successfully applied for a six-month internship at Diageo, which she describes as “a real eye-opener”. Working with Guinness, she says, was an “amazing opportunity”, one that “gave me a real taste for loving this work and the company”. She cites her manager during this time, Ellen McGrane, as a key mentor for her, who ultimately changed the way she thought about her own career.
“She trusted us with responsibility, almost to test how confident we could be, and how much we could push ourselves. I regularly would have had conversations with Ellen about my career path that at the time, which I didn’t even realise was something that I should be talking about.”
When Ellen asked her what kind of role she might see herself in once she graduated, Caoimhe mentioned a lab role. “Ellen wasn’t afraid to pry into that and ask why I chose that area, because everything I had been working on in Diageo up to then had nothing really to do with the lab, so she asked me if I had mentioned a lab role just because I had seen a lot of males in the brewing side of things, and more females on the lab side. I remember that conversation so distinctly, because it changed my perspective on my ability forever. She just presented the information as, if you want to do something, you can do it.”
I remember that conversation so distinctly, because it changed my perspective on my ability forever.
Leading innovation
The proof of the impact of Ellen’s words is clear in the position Caoimhe holds today, as someone who brings innovation, technical excellence and fresh thinking to one of Ireland’s most iconic brands. After graduating, she worked initially at Pfizer, where she was able to develop her lab skills, and then moved to Diageo, working with Baileys in quality assurance and control, before her current role came up. She was thrilled to get to work on Guinness 0.0. “As a food science student, your dream is to work in something innovative and cutting-edge that’s made its mark quickly on the market. It’s genuinely a product that’s changed the landscape of drinking for those who want to moderate their alcohol consumption, which is something to be really proud of. So it’s interesting from a scientific perspective and from a cultural perspective.”
Constant evolution
Speaking to Caoimhe, you can tell she genuinely loves what she does. As well as a curiosity for the business as a whole, taking any opportunity to work with other teams and find out more about aspects she doesn’t have expertise in, she loves the opportunities to constantly grow and learn. “There’s always encouragement to investigate different areas of production or our process if you think you can improve it in some way, teams want to hear that. Being a part of an open team like this is almost like lifting the lid off to say, you set your own limits – we want your input. What do you want out of the role?”
It’s for this reason she would wholeheartedly recommend the industry, and particularly Diageo as a company to others. “The world is your oyster, really. Coming in as an intern, seeing all the different roles I’ve done and the things I’ve been involved in, I’ve had that option to explore different areas. Diageo is workplace that supports your ability to find out for yourself what you like, and that has been really motivational. But you also feel very respected as an employee.”
With this attitude, it’s clear that Caoimhe’s career will continue to progress and evolve in whatever direction she chooses. “You’re always moving forward and upskilling all the time. You’re constantly aiming towards the next thing, which I love.”
Diageo is committed to being one of the world’s most progressive and dynamic consumer product companies, grounded in an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive. To find out more, go to diageo.com.
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