‘I’ve had some very deep conversations on the shop floor with customers’: Edwina Donnellan, CEO of Donnellan’s Centra in Ennis

Unlike most 19-year-olds, Edwina Donnellan spent the turn of the millennium in her family’s shop in Ennis, Clare, refreshing the computers to make sure they didn’t crash.

“I remember being here at midnight and tapping enter into the computer,” she said. “We all thought there was going to be this massive crash… I was there all night on the computer.”

Donnellan, now 45, has dedicated her career to growing the family business, which now has a turnover of almost €11 million and employs 40 people. More than that, Donnellan’s Centra is a hinge in the community.

While a lot of tourists and holidaymakers stop by on their way to Lahinch or Doolin, many more shoppers are from the area. 

They nearly have a chat more here than they would at mass.”

“We have our local farmers coming in, doing the full basket shop, coming in for the chat,” says Donnellan. “Neighbours always meet, they’d be talking for ages outside. They nearly have a chat more here than they would at mass.”

It’s difficult to walk through the shop or the forecourt with Donnellan and her father Jerry, who started the business 36 years ago, without hellos and friendly interruptions from customers stopping to chat.

“I know a lot of customers by name over the years,” she said. “I’ve had some very deep conversations on the shop floor with our customers, you know.”

A centre in the community

The importance of Donnellan’s as a community centre became clear during the pandemic when, Donnellan said, it became one of the few places people could come for face-to-face contact. “We’d have a lot of older people and they love coming in here just to have the chat,” she said.

For those unable to leave home to shop, Donnellan started an informal delivery service when a neighbour gave her a call – could she drop over a few bits? It expanded from there.

As Donnellan’s Centra has grown, the business has also become a sponsor of many local youth sports clubs and school events. “I know the parents, they come in and they are really grateful and appreciative,” said Donnellan. Although, she says, she has to be selective. 

“It has to be your local area, your local schools and your customer base,” she said, “you’ll have your budget, and you have to stick within that… otherwise, it would get totally out of hand.”

“Margins are very tight in this business, extremely tight,” Donnellan explained. It was one of the reasons the family decided, in the early 2000s, to become a Centra franchise in partnership with Musgraves.

“You don’t have that support to grow if you’re on your own,” she said. As part of Musgraves, they have access to HR support, a network, and additional product lines. “There’s so much excellent support there.”

I think you can never rest easy in this business, it’s too fast-paced. You’re only as good as your last five minutes.”

Donnellan particularly stresses how useful it has been to get access to additional training through Musgraves. She went straight from school into the family business. “I didn’t really get the chance to do third-level education, because I was here, and it was a baptism of fire.”

“I look back now and I think it actually worked out for the best,” she said. “I learned on my feet and that stood to me.”

Donnellan is continually looking to grow – both herself and the business. 

“I want to go back to maybe do a bit of learning that I never got to do.” So she’s just enrolled in the Oxford Executive Leadership Program, which will start later this year.

On the business side, she has recently invested €500,000 in upgrades to the tanks at the forecourts at Donnellan’s – the new tanks include a leak-detection system for environmental reasons and, she hopes, make the site future-proof for another 20 years.

Inside the Centra, she stocks The Happy Pear and the Donnybrook Fair ranges – “bringing a touch of Dublin down for all the D4s driving to Lahinch,” she jokes – plus Mood ice cream and Frank and Honest coffee. 

Donnellan’s sells, on average, over 1,900 cups of coffee a day (and over 320 cups of tea), such a high volume that the shop has been chosen for trial to sell iced coffee and are now testing that.

“I think you can never rest easy in this business, it’s too fast-paced,” she said. “You’re literally only as good as your last five minutes.”

Finding a leadership style

The biggest challenge, she thinks, is when Donnellan’s went from a small family business to employing more than 30 staff as it expanded under the Centra umbrella. She had to find her own leadership style, one she says she developed herself after she found overly authoritative management courses didn’t suit her personality.

“I’m kind of a quiet, more of an introverted person,” she explained. “You can’t force yourself to be heavy-handed” if that’s not your personality.”

Donnellan’s style is to say: “Let’s do this together, or, I’m trying to learn here”.

“I think people aren’t stupid, they can see that and feel that,” she said. “People will respond to that better, you being more authentic in yourself.”

She says she’s a visual learner and so mood boards are also part of her leadership style. “I would say I’m so annoying… [My staff] are like ‘Oh no, here she comes again, another 10 pictures’!”

But it’s obviously working for her. About half of Donnellan’s staff have been there for more than 10 years, and many of the others are college students who stay with Donnellan’s Centra their whole four years before moving on after their degrees finish. 

“I actually have a personal relationship with every member of staff.” She’s proud that she didn’t lose anyone during the pandemic. This was the toughness of longer hours than normal implementing changing government regulations, dealing with the runs on toilet paper, and angry, stressed customers.

“It really highlighted the backbone here,” she said, “and probably highlighted how much Jerry and I are here ourselves that people don’t want to let you down. They know it’s not like Edwina’s at home with her feet up, so they will stand by you then.”

I often found going to conferences over the years, I’d always be mistaken for either the wife or the girlfriend.”

Donnellan is usually at the shop by 5:30am and works six days a week. I ask when she took over as CEO of the business and she hesitates. “I suppose I grew into it, it kind of happened unbeknownst to myself.”

A male-dominated industry

Donnellan’s father gradually asked her to take on more responsibility, going to more events on his behalf. It could be challenging, especially meetings of forecourts managers. “The forecourt [events] were hard because I would sometimes be the only female there, and that was difficult.”

Although retail in Ireland tends to be female-dominated, the off-licence and forecourt part of the business tend to be much more male.

“I often found going to conferences over the years, I’d always be mistaken for either the wife or the girlfriend,” she said.

Donnellan was sitting at a table of men when she won Store Manager of the Year at the 2019 Forecourt and Convenience Retailer awards. 

“They were shocked when I won,” she said. “They didn’t even think I was in the category.”

In 2024, on stage winning the Family Business category of the IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year Awards, Donnellan said: “I try to imagine all of the women that went before me that worked hard for their whole lives and never got any recognition for anything. That is what I try to remember tonight… I am so proud that I get to bring this home.”

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

Become an annual member of The Currency today and get unrivalled daily coverage of Irish business, finance and economics. Get access to more than 6,000 unique interviews, investigations, columns, and features, as well as 380 original podcasts – plus all new content for the next 12 months.

Online-only and subscription-only, we examine the sectors, people, and companies that matter. Members also get access to regular events with business leaders, policymakers and opinion shapers; often in collaboration with blue chip partners. 

Join The Currency today with the code IMAGE10 and for 10% off annual membership.

The IMAGE Business Club is building a supportive and empowering community of women in business in Ireland by delivering the Network, the Expertise and the Knowledge they need to thrive. We are delighted to partner with the Currency in this series of interviews and in offering the IMAGE community an exclusive 10% discount on an annual subscription.