Cleaning up by cleaning up: How Ryans Cleaning built a €6m business by following the market

The numbers are striking. Last summer, more than 2.5 million people attended 22 festivals across Ireland and Britain. People were ready to celebrate after years in lockdown, but, in the process, they left more than 2,000 tonnes of waste behind.

Leading the team of up to 300 people collecting, sorting, and recycling all this waste was Aisling Ryan, a 34-year-old from Tipperary. She is the winner of the Family Businesswoman of the Year at the IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year Awards.

Modest but formidable, Aisling runs a business that has a turnover of more than €6 million a year in Ireland and Britain and is now planning to expand into Europe.

I would definitely say to other women to enter – it is a great opportunity to showcase their business and network.” 

Aisling recalls her surprise at winning her category in front of 1,500 fellow leaders. “I was shocked to win,” she said. “I didn’t think I had a chance but then I won it. It meant so much to me and my parents who were there with me.

“I would definitely say to other women to enter as it is a great opportunity to showcase their business and network. So many women I didn’t know came up afterwards to talk to me. It is about women supporting women.”

Trip to Tipp and beyond

Aisling is the youngest of seven children. She remembers touring the country with her father Pat, mother Philomena and her siblings in the 1990s cleaning up after music festival after music festival. “We used to just tag along, as there wasn’t any babysitter,” she said. “We were doing little cleaning jobs, so I was involved in the business from a very early age.”

Ryans Cleaning was founded in 1990 (the year after Aisling Ryan was born) by her father Pat Ryan. Its origins go back to her grandmother who used to take her son with her when she cleaned a local school in Thurles. “As Dad got older, he took over cleaning other schools as well,” Aisling said, adding that, for extra money, Pat cleaned chimneys before getting a job with a multinational cleaning contractor.

After I finished school, I went to college but decided it wasn’t for me, so I joined the business full-time.”

In 1990, Pat went out on his own, inspired by the first Trip to Tipp or Feile festival which took place in his hometown of Thurles. It attracted 50,000 people to see acts including Meat Loaf, The Hot House Flowers and The Saw Doctors. “Pat saw a gap in the market to clean up at the festival,” Aisling. “He just went for it, and Ryans Cleaning took off as there was no other cleaning company doing that type of cleaning at the time. He never stopped after that, and he is still going with me in the business.”

Aisling worked in all aspects of the family business growing up. “After I finished school, I went to college but decided it wasn’t for me, so I joined the business full-time,” she said.

She was just 22 at the time. “I’ve worked the whole way up through the company to where I am now leading it.”

Following the market

As Ryans Cleaning expanded, it also started to work increasingly with Ireland’s biggest music promoter MCD. The Earl of Mount Charles had started hosting huge concerts at Slane Castle often organised by MCD. From the 1990s on, MCD asked Ryans Cleaning to take over cleaning at the festival as it hosted among other REM, Robbie Williams, and Madonna. “This took us out of Tipperary for the first time,” Aisling said. “And as MCD started doing more and more festivals we went with them. This led to us winning contracts with other firms too essentially by word of mouth.”

Aisling was spending her summers immersed in the mud and crowds of music festivals. Did she fall in love with music? “No,” she laughed. “We were too busy working. I have gotten to see many bands but we’re not there to watch the music. We’re there to work hard, do a job, go to bed, and then get up and do the same thing the next day. It is a normal job for us.”

Alongside festivals, Ryans Cleaning works with many indoor event centres and it has carved out a niche cleaning at racecourses. It works with the Galway Races, The Curragh Racecourse and Leopardstown Racecourse, giving it a 40 per cent market share. “We have worked with some racecourses for 20 years,” Aisling said.

The seasonal nature of her business means it employs 90 people permanently, but this can go to 300 during the busy summer seasons. In 2005 Ryans Cleaning started working in Britain – again with MCD – at the V Festival and soon it had a business there. Ryans Cleaning kept growing in Britain and it positioned itself as an industry leader.

In May 2017, a terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester killed 22 people and injured over 1,000. Ryans Cleaning was not working at the concert, but Aisling said it impacted her industry hugely. “It changed the events business,” she said. “A lot of cleaning, security and bar staff at big events are only temporary so you may not know [them] that well.”

Ryans Cleaning brought in a security company to vet its employees by carrying out background checks. “This was an extra expense we took on but we wanted to do it,” she said. “We were the first cleaning supplier to do that in the UK and everyone followed after us.”

Navigating a pandemic

The pandemic was a difficult time for Ryans Cleaning. “Our business shut down overnight,” Aisling said. “Everything just stopped.”

We had to put a lot of staff on temporary layoff.”

To survive, the business pivoted to providing cleaning services to what businesses remained open. “We also have a waste management business,” Aisling said. “Everybody was at home and clearing out their house, so we provided them with a skip collection service. That side of the business really kept us going.” In June 2020, Ireland allowed horse racing to restart behind closed doors so this provided another source of income from cleaning.

“It was an extremely tough period,” Aisling said. “We had to put a lot of staff on temporary layoff.”

In May 2021, Britain started to reopen for events giving her more business. “Britain was a saviour for us,” she said, adding that her business had an office in Birmingham but they decided to close this during the pandemic. “We do have plans to reopen an office in the UK,” she said. “But whether it will happen this year or next I am not sure yet.”

Sustainability

Another major focus for Aisling is sustainability. “There can be an awful lot of waste and tents left behind at festivals,” she said. “Promoters have their own sustainability teams and we work very closely with them.” Abandoned tents and other camping equipment are cleaned and donated to homelessness charities.

There are seven kids in our family and we always joke the business is the eighth.”

“There is a huge amount of work that goes into segregating waste,” she said. “All of our events are zero waste to landfill and we work hard to ensure we have high recycling rates.” Aisling became chief executive less than two years after taking over from her father Pat who remains very involved in the company.

“There are seven kids in our family and we always joke the business is the eighth,” Aisling said. “It can be difficult to be in a family business to separate family life and business life. But it is really great as well as there is a family atmosphere in our business. As a business leader that is really important to me.”

Expansion plans

Ryan is one of the few female leaders in her industry. “I am often in meetings where I am the only woman in the room,” she said. “But I don’t think about it. I am there to do a job and move on.”

“But I am lucky to work in a great industry,” she said. “Cleaning is a job that can be looked down upon but it is a great job. Everybody works together and helps each other out,” Aisling said. “One of the reasons I entered the Image Business[woman of the Year] Awards was to showcase how good our industry is. When I won that night I was flabbergasted. I had tears in my eyes. I was so shocked.” Winning the award she said had given her even more confidence in her business.

“My big plan is to take the business into mainland Europe next,” she said. “We had started to do that before the pandemic but now we are looking again. In 2024 our plan is to be in mainland Europe. It is a chance to start an exciting adventure.”

This is the third in a series of articles written in collaboration with The Currency. Chief Executive of The Currency, Tom Lyons, was a judge of the annual IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year awards.

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