About

‘Linda has the ability remove barriers when it comes to the development of new products or routes to new markets’, in the view of one source. ‘She gives relevant commercial examples and she has ability to translate the law into everyday language’. A recognised industry expert, Linda NiChualladh is praised for her energy, business focus and capacity to cut highly technical subjects down to simple commercial absolutes. ‘Linda is an immensely valuable and sought-after internal resource’, An Post colleague, Peter Gallagher says. ‘She combines an excellent knowledge of the law with deep knowledge of the business, hard work, commitment, toughness, and sharp commercial acumen in creating innovative pragmatic structures’. ‘I’m basically a nerd lawyer’, NiChualladh says. ‘I’ve always worked in niche areas’. She gained wide recognition for her recent work on organising and hosting conferences in one particular area of expertise; data protection. Developed in collaboration with An Post’s marketing team, the events have proven hugely popular. ‘We decided everyone was worried about data protection but no-one knew why, so I held workshops for advertisers, and even our competitors’. NiChualladh has also become a regular speaker at conferences on the topic. ‘Linda has demonstrated an in-depth knowledge of the complex area that can be data protection’, Brian Honan of BH Consulting says. ‘Yet has been able to provide non-legal attendees at these conferences with a concise, informative, and humorous insight into the area’. While another source adds: ‘Linda has been instrumental in the success of the Association of Data Protection Officers, run by the ICS in Ireland’. During her time as a Competition Authority lawyer, Linda worked on a number of high profile merger cases, and was lead attorney on the Authority’s very first prohibition in the IBM and Schlumberger case. It was her desire to take a deeper engagement with the commercial operations of one organisation, which ultimately led her to An Post, she says. During her eight years with the company, she has made it a focus to build bridges with different arms of the business. ‘I think to achieve this you do it slowly – you really need to spend time to get to know people and the personality of the organisation itself and the challenges people are facing’, she says. Liam O’Sullivan at An Post, points also both to her relationship-building and negotiation skills. ‘Despite her approachability and humour her tenacity as a strategist, and a litigator should not be underestimated’ he says. ‘Her ability to connect with people and to understand quickly the dynamics of a situation coupled with her legal expertise and flexibility have resulted in unexpected but welcomed outcomes from tough negotiations which she isn’t afraid to pursue’.