It was a full house at the ACCA Financial Services Network Breakfast 2018. Tara Clements of BNY Mellon and chair of the ACCA Financial Services Network kicked off the event by giving an insight into the activities of the network and the ACCA before introducing the guest speaker.

The guest speaker at the event was Bob Etchingham, the CEO of AppleGreen, the hugely successful forecourt operations group. 

Speaker Bio
Bob Etchingham started up the Applegreen forecourt operation in 1992. A graduate of University College Dublin, Etchingham spent 10 years with Esso before beginning with a single filling station in Ballyfermot, adding two or three a year as what he calls a 'dontrodden dealer'. The big change came when he decided to add 'food to go' at its forecourts, which led to its rebranding as Applegreen in 2005. Recognising that fuel is a 'grudge purchase', he used low prices to attract drivers onto the forecourts, then he said: 'if we can sell them a cup of coffee, we can make more than from the tank of fuel.' Applegreen now has 200 service stations in Ireland and the UK and a couple in America. It has franchises for Subway, Burger King, Costa Coffee and others. Bob has more than 51% of the rapidly expanding company.