On meeting Cara O\u2019Leary, Country Manager at LinkedIn Ireland and Senior Director at LinkedIn Talent Solutions Europe,\u00a0I\u2019m immediately struck by her warmth. There\u2019s no sense of performance as she speaks with confidence about the business she leads, the changing world it operates in and what drives her, at work and at home.<\/p>\n
The third of four children, Cara\u2019s originally from Cork, although much of her childhood was spent between Dublin and Limerick. Based in Dublin for over 25 years, she now lives in Mount Merrion with her husband Conor and their four sons, who fill their home with \u201cnoise, laughter and a lot of joy\u201d. <\/p>\n
Growing up, education was formative \u2013 she studied Business and French at the University of Limerick, a time that sparked a lasting interest in travel.<\/p>\n
From early on, her focus was never on titles, but on doing interesting work. She spent the first 16 years in recruitment, working across Irish firms and US multinationals in fast-paced environments. A pivotal moment came in 2016 when she received an InMail on LinkedIn inviting her to interview for a role. Despite already holding a senior leadership position, she decided to join the fold, saying, \u201cIt felt like a bold pivot, but the vision of the company and the calibre of the people convinced me that it was the right move\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nearly a decade on, that decision has shaped a significant leadership journey. Today, Cara leads LinkedIn\u2019s Dublin site, which is also the company\u2019s EMEA and LATAM headquarters, bringing together teams across engineering, product, sales, marketing and customer solutions. The work supports members, customers and partners across multiple regions, while initiatives such as the LinkedIn Dublin Community Space aim to connect underserved communities with opportunity.<\/p>\n
Mentorship has played an important role in her career to date: she talks about leaders who challenged her thinking and encouraged her to take risks, but she is equally strong on the role of sponsorship which she believes is \u201cthe power of having people advocate for you in rooms you are not in\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On meeting Cara O\u2019Leary, Country Manager at LinkedIn Ireland and Senior Director at LinkedIn Talent Solutions Europe,\u00a0I\u2019m immediately…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-373357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}