Heather Brunner speaks at the 10th anniversary celebration in Limerick in September. Image: Arthur Ellis Photography
WP Engine’s chairwoman and CEO talks about the company’s growth in Ireland, why websites still matter in an AI age, and what it takes to earn trust.
As WP Engine this year celebrates 10 years in Limerick, the Austin, Texas-headquartered web hosting company has grown its Irish operations from about 10 people to close to 170 across Ireland, says CEO Heather Brunner, when we sit down. Globally it employees over 1,000 people today.
About 70 of the team today are based in Limerick, while another 100 or so work remotely from elsewhere in the country, as part of WP Engine’s hybrid approach to work. Brunner is particularly proud of the fact that of the original team of 10, five are still with the company.
The company first came to Ireland to build a customer service hub, driven by growth across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but its operations have has since broadened considerably. The Irish team now spans nearly every function, from finance and revenue operations to customer success, engineering and product, and Brunner says many of the company’s key AI leaders, and the leaders of its internal operations are based here in Ireland today.
Brunner says WP Engine has invested close to $100m in the Irish economy over the decade, through its team, vendors, partners and facilities. Partnerships with local universities have also produced more than 40 co-op placements, in which students alternate between academic semesters and semesters spent working in industry, and the majority of those students went on to join the company, she says.
Decade of progress
The anniversary was marked last month with an event in Limerick (8 September) attended by representatives of the Mayor’s Office of Limerick, the American Chamber of Commerce, the University of Limerick, the Regional Skills Network and IDA Ireland, as well as customers and agency partners. Brunner says there was a palpable “sense of shared pride” among guests who had helped the company find customers, talent and its Limerick offices.
Over that decade Brunner says she has seen a marked acceleration in the development of the Irish economy and its technology scene which has grown further into a thriving, dynamic scene. “Doesn’t it feel like Ireland has hit the gas in the last 10 years?,” she asks. “It just feels like things are moving at a much more rapid pace.”
As for the future of the Irish operations, WP Engine wants to grow its Irish customer base as well as its team here, she says. Its clients in Ireland today include the United Rugby Championship, Kerry Foods, AA Ireland and Evros Technology Group.
The website in the Age of AI
As a company that helps businesses and agencies design, build, manage and power websites on WordPress, the open-source platform, I asked Brunner how the AI era is changing what it does. She says WP Engine is adapting and positioning itself today around the agentic web.
“Most companies, brands and agencies have many websites to manage, so we help them do that at scale. We also power those websites, and particularly in this era of the agentic web – you have both human visitors and an increasing amount of traffic from agents and bots – we help our customers keep their sites highly performant, secure and scalable.”
As to whether AI tools that let people build their own websites pose a threat to its own business, Brunner insists AI offers a “massive boost” to what WP Engine can offer customers. Its core clients, she said, usually run mission-critical sites in which they have invested hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and a site generated quickly with a vibe-coding tool raises the question ‘what is missing?’
“Does it have all the integrations? Does it have your full history of content?” she asks. WP Engine’s answer, she said, is to double down on WordPress and its core customers, helping them use AI to stay relevant and discoverable.
Looking further out, Brunner argued that the website will endure in some form or other into the future. “Whether you call it a website, a web presence or whatever we’ll call it in future, every company is still going to need a front door,” she said. “And WP Engine wants to be the company that helps customers power it.”
Credibility to advocacy
As for Brunner’s own leadership values, she sets out a path that runs: credibility first, then respect, then trust and, finally, advocacy.
“I always say that, first, as a leader you have to be credible. Do people want to spend time with you, get to know you and make the leap to be involved with you?” says Brunner. “Then you have to earn their respect, and respect comes through an exchange of value. ‘Do I help you grow and learn? Am I true to my word?’ Doing that consistently over time earns trust.”
And, she says, with trust comes a sense of freedom. “I know you’ve got my back, and I know you will act consistently, from a place of honesty and transparency. That builds to advocacy, which is when people are willing to do their best work and to associate their personal brand with the company, and with you as a leader.”
She says her and her team’s ultimate aim is to earn trust and respect and build not only an “army” of employee advocates, but also of customer advocates. “Great leaders don’t take their leadership role for granted. They know that to be a leader, it has to be earned.”
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