Do you understand the complexities involved in getting a simple glass of clean drinking water?

In this episode, we sit down with Karl Zimmerer, founder of Glanua, to hear the incredible journey of building one of Ireland’s leading water and wastewater engineering businesses and taking it international.

Karl and his team has doubled the companies revenue in the last 4 years with Glanua on track to hit north of €200m in 2026.

Karl explains the hidden engineering behind something most of us take completely for granted: water. From collecting and treating raw water to delivering clean drinking water, collecting wastewater, treating it and ultimately finding ways to reuse the resulting resources, Glanua provides end-to-end engineering solutions across the entire water cycle.

We discuss:

– How rainwater actually becomes the clean drinking water coming out of your tap.

– Why Dublin’s reliance on a single major water source presents such a significant challenge.

– What Glanua actually does and the enormous complexity behind water and wastewater infrastructure.

– Why Glanua builds much of its equipment and infrastructure directly on-site.

– Why data centres require significant amounts of water and the solutions Glanua is developing to address this.

– Karl’s struggles getting the business off the ground and why delivering an exceptional first job became one of his most powerful marketing tools.

– Why relentless innovation and constantly challenging the status quo allowed Glanua to compete against businesses generating billions in revenue while they were turning over just €40–50 million.

– Growing revenue from approximately €40 million in 2014 to €80 million in 2019.

– How diversifying outside their core expertise created major problems for the wider group when COVID hit.

– The incredibly difficult cash flow challenges Karl faced as profits and cash generated by the core water business were needed to support struggling parts of the wider group.

– How Karl stepped up to manage the combined Irish and UK operations through one of the most challenging periods in the company’s history.

– How Glanua ultimately became part of BHSL, led by Denis Brosnan, and why the deal proved to be such a successful move for the business.

– Glanua’s expansion into the US and why M&A and building an exceptional team on the ground will be crucial to cracking the American market.

– Karl’s perspective on work-life balance after dealing with loss of his daughter when she was young and decades of building and scaling businesses.

– And the first job he recommends his own kids get — and why.Links & Resources:

Glanua : https://glanua.com/

Follow Karl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-zimmerer/