David Kennedy

Nearly 30 years after joining Dell Technologies as a graduate, University of Limerick alumnus David Kennedy is now Chief Financial Officer of one of the world's largest technology companies. Based in Austin, Texas, he spoke to UL Alumni about a career shaped less by careful planning than by curiosity, continuous learning and embracing new opportunities. 

Ask David Kennedy how he reached the top of his profession and he won't start with promotions or career milestones. He talks instead about learning. About curiosity. About saying yes to opportunities. Every new role, international move and challenge is described not in terms of status, but in terms of what it allowed him to learn.

"It's a windy road," he says. "You actually don't know where it's going. But if you're just learning something new every time, I think that gave me a breadth and more balanced set of competencies." 

Learning through experience

David says he always knew he wanted a career in business. "I wanted to be an accountant. As boring as that sounds, business was always the thing I wanted to do." That ambition brought him to University of Limerick. Growing up in Limerick, UL was "always top of the list," but it was the University's pioneering co-operative education programme that ultimately convinced him it was the right place to study.

"The ability to go out and work for a full semester was a huge attraction," he recalls. "You really have to immerse yourself in the company you're in as part of that."

For David, that company happened to be Dell.

"For me, I got to co-op in the company that I'm still in ... for almost 30 years." 

That placement became the catalyst for everything that followed.

Returning to Dell after graduation in 1998, he found himself in a company that encouraged movement rather than routine. Finance provided the foundation, but within that there were opportunities to experience different functions, develop new skills and work around the world. Over the years those opportunities took him from Ireland to India, the United States and back again.

"They kept putting new challenges in front of me."

Each time, he said yes.

Looking back, David says he focused less on chasing a particular destination than on making the most of each opportunity.

"I was really diligent in terms of building competencies," he says. "I was never really hung up on... where do you see yourself in five years or ten years? Every time I've rotated in Dell, it's been with the objective of improving certain competencies.

"It could have been as simple as presentation skills or debate skills, or maybe a technical learning of a certain product that I needed to get." 

That mindset also shaped how he thought about employability. Although he has spent almost three decades with Dell, he is careful not to suggest that staying with one employer should be the goal.

"Not everybody stays in the same company," he says. "You have to advocate for yourself and think, ‘is a skill I'm building advantageous for the company that I'm working for, but am I also building my own CV and my own résumé?’" 

Alongside technical expertise, David believes it is what he calls "how behaviours," interpersonal and communication skills, that determine how effectively someone works with others.

"You need to have a point of view," he says. "It's no point in just having information. Leaders in all companies expect you to debate with them, create a little tension in a good way. 

"The more you ask questions," he says, "the more they ask questions and you kind of find yourself... naturally elevating through companies." 

Growing through challenge 

David’s willingness to embrace new challenges soon took him overseas. 

"I will tell you that the biggest impact of my career was my move to Bangalore in India," he says.

Having spent his career in Ireland up to that point, the experience transformed not just how he worked, but how he viewed the world.

"It just opened my eyes up as to the different cultures, the different ways of doing business, and helped me come out of my shell a little bit more because I would consider myself an introvert.

"We interact with people all over the world on a daily basis," he says. "Just having an appreciation of what makes different people tick and what's important to them, I think makes me a better leader."

Even now, David continues to push himself outside his comfort zone. Although he now speaks confidently to investors, analysts and the media as Dell's CFO, he readily admits it didn't come naturally.

"I would have said I was more a three," he says, describing himself on a scale where zero represents an extreme introvert and ten an extreme extrovert. "Now I'm more like a six or a seven." 

"I've had to develop myself," he explains. "I couldn't do this job if I was a three... but if I force myself to try and act like an eight or a nine, people would see it's fake too. You have to stay true to your authentic self." 

Trust, but verify

David's leadership philosophy is as pragmatic as the one that has guided his own career. 

"I start with this phrase: trust, but verify," he says. “Everybody has a role to do and as part of the leadership, ultimately you have to franchise out your career to everybody else because they're working on your behalf. I like to trust the team and say ‘You're the best person to do this job. I want you to go drive it.’ The verify piece comes in where on exceptions they need help. As a leader, you have to be there and help them and course correct them. And over time, every person makes slightly less mistakes and less impactful mistakes, as long as they're developing. You have to pull people up with you,” he explains.

Asked about the transition into the role, David says becoming CFO meant drawing on the experience he had built over nearly three decades, while recognising there was still plenty to learn. 

With a smile, he says, “I know enough to be dangerous and then there's going to be a piece of the job which is brand new and I'm going to have to learn fast. That’s all been relatively new over the last 12 months… I've done communications training, media training... just to build my knowledge up. Be aggressive and inquisitive to learn all the new stuff and rely on the old stuff that you know."

Staying Curious

That same curiosity shapes the advice he now gives graduates entering a workplace transformed by artificial intelligence.

Everyone, he believes, needs to become "AI fluent and AI native."

“That requires everybody not to just expect that the technology is going to come to them. They’re going to have to embrace the technology. So, everybody in my mind should be playing in all these large language models, learning how to do coding, learning how to prompt with these tools. Every company in the world going forward is going to have AI capabilities in their ecosystem. And they're going to expect graduates to be able to interact with those tools and use them efficiently.

“The folks who will really stand out are the ones who get on that journey the fastest and show real inquisitiveness”.

But technology alone won't set people apart.

"The danger is folks want to run to AI so quickly they forget about everything else," he says. “AI, it's going to give us more information, more data, more points of view, more frequently, just because it works 24/7 and it can move much faster than any human can. So, by default, as a graduate, you're going to have more information than you ever had before, and you need to have really strong communication skills to be able to articulate that information.”

Despite AI's rapid development, David believes one principle won't change.

“I think the one fundamental that stays anchored is when it comes to final judgment, setting strategy or having a point of view, you still need that human touch.

 “People need to continue to read, to learn things, to watch the adoption and stay inquisitive because that point of view is what leaders of the future are going to need. They’ll have information at their fingertips much more quickly, but ultimately, they’ll need the intellect to have a point of view, shape a particular problem or recognise an opportunity.”

Staying Connected

Almost three decades have passed since David sat in a UL lecture theatre as a business student, but his connection to the University remains strong.

For David, being part of the alumni community is about more than looking back. It's about the relationships that continue to grow throughout a career and the opportunity to support those who follow. He hopes more graduates will get involved, drawing inspiration from the strong alumni culture he has seen in the United States.

"It's also a call to action to every UL alum out there," he says. "There's ways you can get involved. There's other connections. There's great forums. So, participate in those and get involved."

It's a message rooted in David's own experience.

One of the moments he remembers most fondly came when he was appointed Chief Financial Officer. While Dell's communications team drafted the announcement, it was Michael Dell, an Honorary Doctor of University of Limerick, who made sure David’s UL connection was included.

"He often talks about that with me," David says. "He says, 'You and I have something in common.' He put that in there. He was keen to make the connection back. That was a good learning for me as well."

"We have some great leaders all around the globe doing great things," he says. "And our next graduates are that next set of leaders.

"It's a great community to be part of and feel proud to help build."