In this article Entrepreneur, Founder, Investor, Author, MBA, Chartered Director, Patrick Ryan CDir, reflects on his non-executive director career, the importance of governance education, and business morality.
Careers rarely unfold in straight lines. Mine began in technology and later moved through banking, entrepreneurship, and board work across Europe, Asia, and the United States. These experiences exposed me to different organisational cultures and sparked a curiosity about why some institutions persevere and earn trust while others don’t. Over time, that curiosity narrowed into a more focused question: what makes governance succeed, and why does it fail?
Formative Influences
Two institutions shaped that inquiry in important ways. IESE Business School introduced me to a humanistic view of leadership — one that sees people as moral agents whose decisions carry social consequences. A few years later, while building KYCnet in Amsterdam, those ideas met everyday reality. AML and KYC controls are often treated as regulatory burdens, yet they protect society’s financial integrity. Running KYCnet showed me that governance is not a checklist but a lived practice expressed through judgement, tone, and culture; failures were rarely technical but stemmed from poor incentives, weak challenge, cultural drift, or a lack of moral courage. After returning to Ireland in 2021, the IoD translated that evolving sensibility into the practical discipline of governance: clarity of role, independence of judgement, behavioural awareness, and accountability. Each experience arrived at the right moment, gradually shifting me from a technology to executive leadership role toward a more reflective engagement with governance, institutional trust, and the moral foundations of markets.
The NED Playbooks
These insights led me to write the Financial Institutions NED Playbooks in 2024. I wrote them to help myself — and other experienced but non-financial-services NEDs — contribute our diverse experiences more effectively on regulated boards. In analysing more than 300 case studies of failure (and the occasional success), I saw the same patterns repeat: misaligned incentives, excessive deference to founders or CEOs, passive or under-skilled boards, and cultures that normalise small deviations until they escalate into systemic risk.
Fragilities Beyond Finance
But these failures are not confined to financial institutions. Much of the modern economy shows similar fragilities: waves of technological hype, speculative excess, and a growing preference for narrative over substance. The rapid cycles — from blockchain and crypto to the metaverse, NFTs, and now AI — mirrors the governance breakdowns I studied, revealing a market culture increasingly drawn to spectacle, volatility, and short-term thinking.
The Moral Market
It was in this context that I was inspired to write my new book, The Moral Market — a way to understand what had gone wrong and how a return to Adam Smith’s moral foundations could help today’s leaders and directors find their bearings. Often presented as the emblem of unbridled free markets, Adam Smith has long fascinated me for the moral depth beneath that caricature — a depth that I discovered offers prospective directors a very practical framework.
Adam Smith's Principles
His concept of Sympathy reminds us that governance is never merely technical. Directors must consider the human consequences of strategic and financial decisions. Understanding how actions affect employees, customers, and communities is central to stewarding trust. His Impartial Spectator aligns directly with the role of the non-executive director. It is the internal voice that asks: How would a fair and informed observer judge this decision? Cultivating this habit protects boards from groupthink, charisma, narrative, and urgency.
His understanding of Justice mirrors the purpose of modern regulatory frameworks. For Smith, justice was the “main pillar” of society — the minimum condition for order. AML controls, risk, operational resilience, and data protection are not bureaucratic hurdles; they safeguard the trust on which markets depend. Directors who treat compliance as a burden misunderstand its purpose.
His emphasis on Beneficence, the voluntary acts that build legitimacy, appears today in transparency, fair dealing, and responsible engagement with stakeholders. While justice prevents harm, beneficence earns trust. Boards must therefore look beyond minimum obligations and ask whether their organisations behave in ways that people judge to be fair and honest.
His admiration for Prudence is perhaps his most enduring lesson for modern markets. Prudence is not caution for its own sake. It is the disciplined balancing of ambition with foresight — a counterweight to hype cycles, valuation bubbles, and the allure of speed. Boards must champion long-term thinking, steady execution, and responsible innovation.
Finally, Smith’s warnings about the dangers of Monopoly and disproportionate Influence feel strikingly current. Today’s markets are shaped by dominant platforms, data monopolies, and complex digital dependencies. Directors must recognise the systemic risks that come with such concentration and ensure their organisations understand — and prepare for — these structural realities.
An Education in Governance
Looking back, my career feels less like a planned path and more like an education in governance: IESE provided the ethical foundation; KYCnet revealed governance in action; the IoD supplied structure and discipline; the Playbooks imposed clarity; and The Moral Market tied the practical and philosophical threads together.
If these experiences have taught me anything, it is that governance is, above all, a moral practice. Directors are custodians of trust, stewards of prudence, challengers of excess, and defenders of justice. Strong governance and ethical leadership are not constraints on enterprise but the conditions that allow enterprise - and society - to flourish.
About the Author
Patrick Ryan is a Dublin-born entrepreneur, investor, and seasoned board director recognised for his thought leadership in fintech, regtech, and social impact investing. With over three decades of international experience across Europe, Asia, and the U.S., he returned to Dublin in 2021. Patrick began his professional journey at KPMG in the late 1980s, subsequently taking on innovation leadership roles at global firms such as ABN Amro and Mattel. In 2008, he co-founded KYCnet, an innovative SaaS regtech firm serving prominent European banks and consultancies. Under his leadership, KYCnet scaled internationally, growing to over 160 employees and establishing delivery hubs across multiple regions before its acquisition by Equiniti PLC in 2017.
Today, Patrick advises and invests in cutting-edge fintech, medtech, SaaS, and web3 ventures across Ireland, Europe, and the U.S. He contributes his expertise through active participation on investment committees, including PYMWYMIC and Great Stuff Ventures, and is engaged in influential professional networks such as the Harvard Business School Alumni, IESE, and HBAN.
Patrick holds a Global Executive MBA from IESE Business School, complemented by executive education from Harvard Business School. He is also a Chartered Director and active member of the Institute of Directors in Ireland.
Read the Flipbook of the Moral Market - Adam Smith and the Promise of Virtuous Capitalism and view Patrick's other publications.
This article is the view of the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect IoD Ireland’s policy or position.
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