From Galway students’ union to Toronto, via New York – I’ve learned so much from working with some of the most innovative people and companiesJoe O'Connor: 'Making a positive impact is not an added bonus for me – it is the motivation' Joe O’ConnorMon Jun 08 2026 - 06:01 • 2 MIN READI studied accounting at what was then GMIT in Galway (now Atlantic Technological University). At that point I really didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do, either in college or after it. I enjoyed the more generalised business subjects, but less the pure accounting ones, and I quickly realised that becoming an accountant wasn’t the career path for me.In my final year, I made a last-minute decision to run for the students’ union. My campaign was probably somewhere between chronically disorganised and nonexistent, but I performed well in the debates, I really enjoyed it, and I realised this was something I wanted to do properly. So I came back to do a master’s in business strategy and innovation management, partly to give myself another shot at the students’ union – and the next time around I was successful, winning election as vice-president. I went on to become president of GMIT’s students’ union and then president of USI, the national student representative body, which brought me on to the Higher Education Authority and into much broader conversations about education policy.From there, I went to work with Fórsa as an organiser, eventually becoming its director of campaigning, and completing an advanced diploma in employment law along the way. It was during this period that I launched the four-day-week Ireland campaign and then the world’s first co-ordinated private sector pilot of the shorter working week. I was probably one of a small number of people who had been talking about this issue, researching it and actively campaigning for it before Covid came along, when it became a much bigger topic globally.In 2021, I moved to New York as a visiting research scholar at Cornell University and as chief executive of a global not-for-profit advancing the shorter working week. I led what became the world’s largest pilot of the model, working with hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of employees to reduce their working time while maintaining or improving productivity. In late 2022 I relocated to Toronto, where I cofounded my own firm, Worktime Revolution, with my partner Grace Tallon. My first book, Do More in Four, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in January.We work with organisations on shorter working weeks, workplace habits and human-centred AI strategies, typically with forward-thinking leaders who are looking to do things differently and put their people first. I love the diversity of the work. No one project or organisation is the same, and no one day is the same. Over the last half decade I’ve learned so much from working directly with some of the most innovative leaders and companies out there.Making a positive impact is not an added bonus for me – it is the motivation. Whether that means an employee reclaiming a Friday for their own wellbeing, or contributing to broader policy conversations about AI and working time, I genuinely believe that better work and better lives don’t have to be in conflict. IN THIS SECTION