John Teeling

John James Teeling (born January 1946) is an Irish academic and businessperson, notable for the wide range of businesses he has developed or overhauled over several decades. In particular, he broke the Irish Distillers monopoly which existed in the Irish whiskey industry, by launching the Cooley Distillery, and reopened the 1757-founded Kilbeggan Distillery after a 50-year hiatus. He is also notable for having brought ten companies to public listing on the London Stock Exchange, the most of any Irish person. Teeling lectured at University College Dublin's business school for over 20 years. He authored a number of educational texts, for primary school and college.

Early life and education John James Teeling was born in January 1946, the eldest of the four children of James "Jimmy" B. Teeling (died 1960) and Emma "Emily" Teeling (née Kinsella, died 2005) of Hollybrook Road in Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin, where he grew up. His father was a Royal Liver Assurance agent, and Teeling has said that his family were neither rich nor poor, but were the first on their street to buy a television and a car.

After school, Teeling secured a job in the Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB) but he did not feel he fitted the organisation and instead won and took up a Dublin Corporation scholarship to University College Dublin (UCD), where he qualified with a Bachelors of Commerce, and then a Masters in Economic Science.

Career Academia Teeling accepted a lecturing post at UCD in 1969,

Minerals and other investments In the early stage of his work as a lecturer in finance and business at UCD, in 1969, Teeling was asked to provide some consultancy for Northgate Exploration, owners of the Tynagh Mine in County Galway, then the largest in Ireland and then David Boyd Barrett asked him to take a consultant role with the new Tara Mines in County Meath, working from offices in Clontarf. For most of the period Teeling worked part-time at UCD but he did take a break from lecturing for two years to work on Seafield Gentex. Although firmly declining investment in property at a personal level,

In 1983 Teeling launched Minquest, an exploration investor which took shares in, and drove reforms of, a number of Irish mineral and hydrocarbon operations, including Kenmare Resources, Ovoca and Irish Marine Oil. The company's licences were eventually sold to Conroy and Teeling described the venture as so profitable that it was hard to repeat, saying "I should have quit after Minquest but I now wanted to set up and manage..." He later set up African Gold, and when he sold that, managed a spin-off, West African Gold, and Botswana Diamonds, which in turn established a diamond-prospecting joint venture with Alrosa. Other projects included Pan Andean Resources, Persian Gold, Clontarf Energy, Petrel Resources, and Connemara Mining (later Arkle Resources). He disclaims deep understanding of IT but has described biotechnology and DNA, an area in which his daughter, academic Emma Teeling, works, as "the Internet of the future".

Distilling Cooley Teeling was a long-term believer in the potential of the Irish whiskey market, stating that it has a gross return level on the order of 15 times base costs. In 1987, Teeling founded the Cooley Distillery, on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, taking over a disused State spirit factory, operated by Ceimici Teoranta. The project, which broke a monopoly in Irish whiskey production held by Irish Distillers,

Shortly after the previous monopoly whiskey manufacturer Irish Distillers was bought out by Pernod Ricard in 1988, it offered to buy Cooley for IR£24.5million, with an openly stated plan to close the business and raze the distillery. The offer, which would have provided a profitable payback to Cooley's investors, was blocked by Irish competition authorities, and subsequent financial challenges required Teeling to urgently secure stock advance sales and other financings, including further substantial personal investment. Teeling commented that there were in all three critical moments in the business's history when urgent financing was needed. The first distilling was completed in 1989, and after several years in casks, that first whiskey was released under the Tyrconnell brand in 1994. A sale to CL Financial almost materialised for €33million in 2002,

After Cooley Teeling bought the former Harp Brewery in Dundalk, County Louth, in 2013, after the brewing operation had been moved to St James's Gate in Dublin by Diageo. The venture was started with his Irish Whiskey Company, The business trades as Great Northern Distillery and primarily sells to own brands or private labels and others needing a supply of bulk whiskey; as of 2017, it was producing over 6 million litres annually.

Public profile Teeling is a high-profile figure in Irish business, regularly quoted in the media. He also performs talks and speeches at business group meetings and other events. Emma, Jack, and Stephen, and several grandchildren. Of the children, Emma Teeling is a zoologist, genomicist and evolutionary biologist, and a professor at UCD, while Jack and Stephen worked at Cooley Distillery,

John Teeling is a teetotaler. taught Business Studies in the secondary school they had attended, St Joseph's, Fairview, to which John Teeling has contributed with scholarships and funding for after-school classes.