Fran Rooney
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Fran Rooney (born 1956, Dublin, Ireland) was CEO of Baltimore Technologies from 1996-2001 and chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland from May 2003 to November 2004.
Fran Rooney grew up in Ringsend, then a very working-class area of Dublin.
Sport was a very important part of young Rooney's life and he would come to understand how the concept of teamwork transferred to the world of business. He would come to say that 'Sport is the greatest character builder of all'. Becoming a professional footballer seemed too great of a risk for the soccer-mad young man and he became the Irish Ladies Soccer Team Manager in 1986.
Rooney's first job was in the Irish Department of Posts and Telegraphs, while he studied at night. After meeting the well-known Irish businessman Dermot Desmond Fran restructured the Quay Financial Software company with him. Baltimore was bought with several investors including Fran, Dermot Desmond and Michael Smurfit.
Rooney's big breakthrough at Baltimore came with the help of Bill Clinton and Bertie Ahern in 1998 when the two leaders would sign a deal with Baltimore's encryption process.
Rooney outlined his business maxim as G.B.F. or Get big fast and determined that this was the only strategy for Baltimore, that they should think of themselves as a global company from the start. He became the Baltimore CEO after a 'good marriage' with a UK firm.
Rooney came under heavy criticism from the Baltimore board towards the end of the Dot-com bubble and denied that Baltimore stock was over valued (the company was once valued higher than the Bank of Ireland).
He would later take Baltimore to court for comments made in public about him and his tenure at Baltimore by the then CEO Bijan Khezri in a series of press briefings. It was alleged that these comments breached a 'compromise agreement', struck in May 2001 when he left the company, under which neither side would criticise the other.
Rooney became CEO of the Football Association of Ireland in May 2003 but left in November 2004 after falling out with the board and because his difficult working relationship with the staff.
In 2005 it was reported that Rooney was going back into the high tech sector in a venture with former Irish recruitment high flyer David McKenna in the mobile software company Vimio as non-executive chairman of the company.
Rooney became Executive Chairman of Ice Broadband in June 2006. Ice Broadband was founded in 2003 and focuses on providing services in suburban areas, rural locations and small towns. The company is headed by his eldest daughter Yvonne Rooney and recently they acquired the assets of the satellite broadband company Ildana.
