Voices
If there is a stand out memory of the six-day Ireland Gateway To Europe trade mission to the US – and there were many – it was listening as Bertie Ahern discussed Northern Ireland and other topics with the president of Fenway Sports Group (FSG) while I was in their company.
FSG are the owners of the Boston Red Sox and, more importantly as far as I’m concerned, Liverpool Football Club. On a previous trip, Linda Pizzuti, wife of FSG founder John Henry was sitting at another table. Liverpool were involved at the time, as they are again, in a neck and neck battle with Manchester City and one of us decided to ask her if she could get us tickets for Liverpool’s last game of the season against Wolves. She said she couldn’t do that, but she would get us tickets for the Red Sox that night. So there we were at Fenway Park, a ground as historic as Anfield, with seats right behind the dugout. This, I told myself, would be like watching Jurgen Klopp from a few feet away.
Ahern was on the trip for the first time this year and he made quite an impression on everyone. Over the trip, we got to see first-hand what made him such an astute statesman as well such a formidable constituency politician. He can charm birds off the trees and while I knew much of what he had achieved in politics, it was only on this trip that I came to fully appreciate the range of his talents. Every time he spoke, whether it was being interviewed by Robert Mac Giolla Padraig at the Boston College dinner, or at the Kellogg Business School at Northwestern, you learned something new from him.
Ahern has this great ability to be everyman and a statesman in one. He was as happy talking about the Dubs as he was informative talking about the crisis in Ukraine. The Americans loved him. Bertie spoke with great authority on Ukraine and global geopolitics at the Kellogg Business School at Northwestern University. He had a very interesting perspective on the role of China in helping resolve the crisis in Ukraine.
In 2012, the Gateway to Europe trade mission began when 20 of us flew out. From little acorns…
Back then, Ireland seemed like a place few people wanted to do business. The co-founders of Gateway – Matt Mohan, Managing Director of The FKM Group, Adie McGennis, Managing Director of Sigmar Recruitment, Frank Keane (EisnerAmper) and Paul McGennis (former Managing Partner of Byrne Wallace and now Head of Dual Asset) – wanted to try and do something to change that. Ten years later, it’s clear how they played their part.
It is a privately funded not-for-profit organisation and each year (Covid excepted), it has made an annual pilgrimage to the States, in the words of Matt Mohan “to do some friend raising”.
Thanks to this “friend raising” over the years and the promotion of reciprocal visits to Ireland, the Gateway delegation get access in both cities that is second to none. Two key players in making this happen are the philanthropist Neil Naughton, chairman of Glen Dimplex, and the aforementioned Robert Mac Giolla Phadraig, director of Sigmar Recruitment.
Robbie is a world class interviewer on top of everything else, while Neil has a contacts book that is second to none. In particular, Neil has significant contacts with blue-chip American universities including Notre Dame, Boston College and Northwestern University. Not only does Neil have high level contacts within these universities, he is highly networked with their respective alumni. Over the years the Gateway delegation often attended business lunches and dinners run by the colleges. On this trip we were at the prestigious Boston College business dinner (hosted by BC Irish Institute Director Robert Mauro), and again Neil was the driver in the background.
It might be my own biases but football is the universal language, even on a trip like this one. As a Liverpool fan, I had to get away to watch their first leg against Benfica – “a good result for your boys,” Bertie said to me afterwards and out of respect I held my tongue when talking about Manchester United, while Larry Bass from ShinAwiL wanted to find somewhere to watch West Ham play Lyon. In Boston, with those like Mark Lev, the FSG president who Neil introduced to Bertie, Liverpool is a natural ice breaker. They are a club that has a long association with Ireland and they are a club now who are a natural draw for people in cities like Boston and Chicago.
The people we met on the trip have a track record of creating employment in Ireland or have a genuine interest in doing so and each year, you see how things are developing, especially now after a Covid break.
Robbie is the Gateway front man. He is a natural and very polished communicator and does a lot of the on stage interviews and introductions. Robbie is highly networked in his own right and has secured some great speakers for Gateway.
Rosaleen Blair (founder of the recruitment service company Alexander Mann), one of Ireland’s most successful entrepreneurs, was a welcome addition to this year’s delegation. Robbie consistently secures high profile, high value contacts such as Rosaleen for Gateway. Robbie also developed a key relationship with Kevin Whelan (Director of Keough Naughton, Notre Dame Centre Dublin) who has opened up the who’s who of Chicago’s business community to Gateway and was a great help to Gateway in the earlier years.
Bertie Ahern was also a huge attraction for the US business communities in both cities. In Boston for example, Neil introduced him to the aforementioned Mark Lev from FSG, illustrating Bertie’s draw, Neil’s contact book and the calibre of business people that the Gateway party was getting exposed to. FSG were attending a lunch hosted for Gateway by Silicon Bank in Boston, a bank that has invested over $500m with Irish businesses over the years.
After the Silicon Bank lunch, Rosaleen conducted an interview with the founder of Workhuman, another Irish unicorn (valuation of over $1 billion), Dublin’s own Eric Mosely, who now lives full time in Boston with his family. While Eric is building on his success with Workhuman, we also had the pleasure of meeting another Irish entrepreneur at an earlier stage of their journey, Limerick’s Barry O’Mahony. Barry is the co-founder of Umba, Umba’s mission is to be Africa’s first digital bank. Barry is living in Chicago with his young family and is about to move to San Francisco. He has successfully raised $15m in Series A funding for Umba in April this year. Barry was telling us that he needed to move to San Francisco to be closer to investors and how he travels to Nigeria on a regular basis as he scales the business. Umba is a fascinating story and Barry is one to watch.
In Boston we also had a breakfast session hosted by Drift’s Jim Kelliher (former CFO of LogMeIn) and a friend of Ireland and of Gateway. Robbie curated a session on the future of work with Amy Spurling (founder of Compt) and Alison Darcy (founder of Woebot). Alison is yet another great Irish entrepreneur conquering the States and evangelising for her business.
The audience at Drift was a mix of Boston business people and the Gateway group. After breakfast we broke up into round table discussions on the future of work. What was striking is the issues we have in Ireland around hybrid/remote/in-office working are exactly the same in the U.S. The discussions got lively at times, particularly about whether employers should insist that their employees return to the office or not.
Michael Kelly and Clare Kelly from Glandore (serviced office providers) made a strong case for flexible workspaces and how they are seeing a return to the office in their Irish properties. Glandore understand FDI (foreign direct investment) better than most and used the Gateway trip to meet potential clients in both Boston and Chicago, not just promoting their business, but cross selling for other Gateway attendees where possible. This is the essence of the Gateway spirit, it’s like we get on the plane wearing the blue of Leinster and red of Munster and get off the other end wearing the green jersey.
It was great to get to know other entrepreneurs from the trip, Larry Bass took the opportunity to drum up new business, Ciara Donlon is the founder of the “femtech” business Theya Healthcare and Seaghan Kearney from VAAS (Video as a Service) all had great stories to tell.
Jason Sherlock from DCU and Emer O’Gorman from Fingal County Council were in awe of the facilities in Northwestern University, if someone could give Jayo $480m (the investment that Northwestern have made in their sports complex) to develop DCU, he’ll sign a pair of boots for you.!
Northwestern are also building a new stadium and we talked to Jesse Marks, the man responsible for securing sponsorship. What he looks for is a quick no or a long yes and he won’t talk to anyone who isn’t prepared to put $25 million towards it.
We visited Northwestern as part of the build-up to the Nebraska v Northwestern college football game being played in the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, August 27th. Brendan Meehan is the Commercial Director promoting the game. Brendan spoke to us at Northwestern about the game, the importance of the event as a tourist attraction and how attractive the game also is to an Irish sporting and corporate audience. Everyone we heard from in Northwestern spoke with great excitement and anticipation about their trip to Ireland. It promises to be some event. Again it should be noted that Neil Naughton has played a key role in making this happen.
Our friends in FineGrain Property, Bank of Ireland, Linesight and BDO took the time to meet their US clients in person, something they all found very beneficial. Gateway veteran Fionan O’Sullivan was quietly but effectively networking away on behalf of Invesco while another Gateway veteran, the ever young Philip Carney, led The HR Company delegation. Philip and the team secured some new business in Boston for themselves, while I suspect also gaining a few clients from the Gateway group itself.
Siobhan Gahan and Stephen Hicks flew the VHI flag, Siobhan was generous as always with any leads she has for the group. Paul Hayes (Beach Hut PR) and Mary Mitchell O’Connor (former Fine Gael minister) added great colour to our party. Other great additions to the Gateway family on this trip were the law firm Leman (now merging with Ogier to become Ogier Leman), De Care Dental, CTM Relocation, Aramex, Savills, Globalization Partners, Piercom, Seidman & Co, Frosch Ireland, The Cork Chamber of Commerce and Udaras na Gaeltachta.
A huge debt of gratitude is also due to Claire Kelly and Jamie Harnett from Sigmar Recruitment, who seamlessly managed all the events and the logistics for 60 people and did so with great patience and humour. Thanks also to Jackie Sheehan from Frosch who handled all the travel and accommodation requirements of the group.
Gateway has now established itself as a key and effective promoter of FDI in Ireland. The group has fostered a collegiate approach, we all help each other and together we promote Ireland as a country where business can be done. In the ten years of the trips, a lot has changed, but as Bertie once said, “a lot done, more to do”.
