Our story

“In a corporate environment people always appear to be paying attention, no matter how boring a presentation might be. But lively, expectant audiences in darkened comedy clubs are less forgiving. If you’re not entertaining them, they’ll let you know right away!”

Padraig Hyland, CEO The Core Story™

After 16 years of leadership positions in global multinationals in Asia, USA and Europe, Padraig Hyland, co-founder of The Core Story, left it all behind to follow his dream as a professional stand-up comedian. The experience was both challenging and insightful but, after seven years, Padraig returned to the business world where he found business leaders facing a new challenge – one that was very familiar to him. The audiences businesses were targeting – consumers, customers, investors, employees – were behaving like comedy audiences: less compliant, more demanding, with higher expectations and an appetite for exciting engagement. 

Padraig realised that business leaders were not equipped to communicate effectively with this kind of audience. They needed skills used by every successful comedian – an authentic voice and an ability to tell their story. And who better to empower them with these skills than someone with experience in both camps? And so, in 2014, Padraig’s new dream emerged as ‘The Core Story’, a business focused on helping leaders connect authentically with their audiences. 

He co-founded The Core Story™ with Muireann Ryan, an accomplished actor, singer, voice coach and teacher, whose innate drive helps others learn how to excite audiences. Padraig and Muireann’s unique, story-based approach has proved to be an effective framework that connects with audiences yielding amazing results. The Core Story™ now brings together skills and experience from international business strategy, performing and creative arts, leadership development, broadcasting and journalism, to create meaningful business stories and strategies, with powerful results – in terms of business culture as well as bottom line.