Beggs was born in Dublin, Ireland, the second of two sons to Joan (nee Smith) and Jack Beggs. He was educated at a young age by the Christian Brothers. Straight after completing his Leaving Cert , Howard took up a job in the Smurfit Group where he got a role in the emerging computer division. This served to be his introduction to technology by selling and implementing software solutions. At the age of 26, Beggs took his first foray into the entrepreneurial world with the opening of Medicom.^[2]

A year later, in 1996, he began an MBA in Advanced Management in the University College Dublin, graduating three years later^[3]. In 2008, Beggs then completed the Leadership 4 Growth Programme by the Stanford Business School, California. He then attained a diploma in Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law from the Law Society of Ireland in 2010.

Career

Early Career

Howard’s entrepreneurial career began in 1995 when he founded a small healthcare technology company (Medicom^[2]) to provide software solutions to private medical consultants in Ireland. ‘There was an emerging sophistication around making claims with insurance companies at the time and the idea of automating that was the genesis of the company’ ^[3] . Howard then undertook an aggressive expansion strategy which saw the business expand from its initial €250k start-up to revenues in excess of €13.5 million by 2014. This strategy was achieved with fundraising, multiple mergers and acquisitions, and the management of a rapid organisational growth and product expansion plan. ^[2]

For the first three years of Medicom, the main focus was, after building it, to market and sell the product to individual practices. It had grown to six staff by 1999, turning over revenues of €500,000. The introduction of Frank Roche ^[7] – who later became Beggs’ Leadership Coach - from the UCD Entrepreneurship Programme opened up opportunities around …and introductions to players within the venture capital community^[3]. By the end of 2000, with a successful fundraising injection of €1m through Davy Stockbrokers, the company was fully capitalised and ready to fulfil Howard’s extensive business plan and entrepreneurial vision.

Medicom's Expansion

Sales in Medicom continued to propagate until it landed Howard in a position to consider an acquisition strategy, whereby he went to the market again in 2003 and raised, through the Bank of Ireland Venture Capital, another €2m^[3]. This capital enabled Howard to acquire the major local competitor at the time and also venture into the UK, moving into the General Practice space in doing so.

The move into the General Practice space had opened up an entire new market to the company and so by 2005 the business was employing 30 people, generating €3.4m in revenue, and had two professional investors involved.

Clanwilliam Group

Clanwilliam Group was formed in late 2014 when Eli Global, a US Group, acquired two leading Irish healthcare technology companies: Helix Health.^[10] and Socrates Healthcare (now Clanwilliam Health) ^{[11] [12]}

Backed by the funding of Eli Global, Howard Beggs, then CEO of Helix Health, had a vision to bring together a number of like-minded healthcare businesses across the world.^{[13] [11]}. By July 2018, 16 Healthcare technology businesses had been acquired into the Clanwilliam Group porfolio ^{[15][16][17] [12]}

References