Interview by Mike Greenly
Founded in 1973, The Irish Business Organization of New York was at its inception an organization named The Irish Insurance and Reinsurance Society. The name reflected that its founding members were insurance professionals.
As early as their second meeting, the name was shortened to the Irish Insurance Society and in 1977 was changed to the Irish Insurance Society of New York. Its founders intended it as an information and education network that all its members could benefit from.
As the organization grew, its wider value to the Irish and Irish-American business community became apparent. When it was renamed The Irish Business Organization of New York, it took on a broader mission and In 1990, the IBO was incorporated as a non-profit organization.
Current IBO NY President John Lee’s mission as an Irish-American leader coincides with that of the IBO’s. As Goodman Media International’s Vice President, he is all about communicating. His independent New York-based public relations agency has been active for a quarter-century.
Until the lock-down, the IBO-New York held over 25 events a year, including its monthly evening networking sessions, monthly business breakfasts, and quarterly women’s networking lunches. The IBO has also hosted parties for St.Patrick’s Day, mid-Summer and for Christmas. Every year, the IBO marches in the St.Patrick’s Day parade and sponsors numerous other events which provide opportunities for networking, professional development, education, inspiration and friendship among members.
With all that in mind, and the pandemic pause in place, IBO NY has been persevering with virtual experiences taking the place of live events. Now that the new year has kicked off, Lee faces, as its leader, an unusual year, 2021, with many changes at hand and more to come. Here, he discusses how he sees his role today.
Q: So how do you describe the IBO mission nowadays?
JL: The IBO is best explained by its motto “Network, Communicate, Reciprocate.” We’re a business networking organization with a welcoming community feel, for the Irish who emigrated here, for Irish Americans drawn to the Irish world, for the Irish in Ireland looking to expand their business networks in the US and for a wide range of people who don’t have Irish roots, but respond positively to the Irish message.
We have been working hard to provide inspiration, motivation and information for our heavily impacted membership during the pandemic. One small silver lining is that the virtual format has enabled us to bring in an impressive roster of speakers from Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere that we would not have been able to feature in an in-person meeting. We have expanded our network for membership by engaging new attendees from all over the map.
IBO members are always bringing to the attention of other members new business opportunities. They’re motivated by a “pay it forward” mindset — they may help one member, then find they get a boost from another member. A lot of business has been done within the IBO.
Q: Do you think there’s truth in the saying that the Irish have the “gift of gab?” JL: It was through the telling of stories, legends and traditions that the Irish held their culture together in the face of wars, famine, epidemics and emigration. Suggesting that the Irish have the gift of gab, then, isn’t to say they talk too much, but that their culture, over the centuries, came to rely on verbal communications as the primary method of keeping their history alive.
Q: Communicating seems to be your strong suit; how did that turn into a career for you?
JL: My career followed a winding path and, at times, it was hard to see its direction but communications was always at its core. I worked in the education department of the National Gallery of Art giving museum tours. After my European trek, I worked for a consulting company in the non-profit field where I focused on writing and editing. The writing led to freelance articles first on travel (which earned me a free trip to Ireland) and then on horse-racing. That led to a long run in the public relations department of the New York Racing Association, ultimately as the head of the department.
I left in 2009 and in my networking, found my way to New York’s’ Irish trail. Every time I networked in Irish circles doors opened up…so I kept walking through those open doors.
I worked with Peter Quinn, Mary Anne Pierce and Paul Dougherty on “Bards’ for St. Brigid’s — a fundraiser to support efforts to save from demolition “The Famine Irish Church” on the Lower East Side. Peter then invited me to join the new Irish American Writers & Artists where I helped promote its Eugene O’Neill Award event and served on its board for many years.
My networking trail also led me to a number of Irish networking organizations, especially the Irish Business Organization of New York. One appeal of the IBO was the chance to network with so many people in so many industries with only our mutual Irish interests providing the connective tissue. I had been networking within my own industry but there was a bit of “preaching to the choir” in doing that.
After my warm welcome to the IBO, I went on to serve several board roles and am now on my second term as president.
Q: Given your strong association with communication, how did you become affiliated with Goodman Media International?
JL: Professionally I was doing public relations as John Lee Media, taking on the occasional Irish project. I met Margaret Molloy, a well-known marketing executive and later the founder of the #WearingIrish movement. She introduced me to Jeffrey Hayzlett who had recently started a PR firm called Tall Grass as part of his growing marketing and media company. Jeffrey hired me for a project, but before long, I was working for him full-time.
About five years ago, I got a call from Tom Goodman, who I had met when I first left NYRA, saying we should break bread, and a month after that I was an Executive Director of Goodman Media International (GMI).
GMI handles PR and digital media for clients in media & publishing, professional services, healthcare, lifestyle, arts & culture, and consumer goods. We approach media relations with a newsroom vibe and work closely with media at both top-tier and highly-specialized news outlets. GMI has been “international” since its first client, British Airways. Since then companies and organizations from the UK, Greece, the Netherlands, and Mexico and other countries have been part of our client roster.
My business development goal has been to attract Irish clients. A few years ago, we did a project for the Irish company Allergy Standards,which was representing the Dublin-based Scope Eyecare in their expansion into the U.S. market. We’re now doing a project for Bord Bia, the Irish food board.
Q: How has the COVID experience affected the work you do for your clients?
JL: We have been incredibly busy during the pandemic because key clients had dozens of spokespeople ready to comment on COVID from any business aspect imaginable.
Q: It seems that your professional career path has really dovetailed with your Irish heritage. Can you cite how that has worked?
JL: The Irish Consulate in New York has been a key stop on the Irish trail for me and so many others with their community outreach, and their support of so many Irish organizations. They have held many events including the First Friday Breakfast, started by Peter Ryan — then Deputy Counsel General, and now Ambassador to New Zealand. I count Peter as one of my primary guides on the Irish trail.
Q: Along that Irish trail, have you explored your own Irish roots?
JL: My family names are Lee, Daly, Kennihan, and Kearney; my grandparents came over from Co Cork, Co Clare and Co Offaly. I only knew one grandparent — my mother’s mother Rose Daly nee Kennihan. Her sister had migrated to Australia and she decided to move to America following the trail of some long lost relative. She worked as a cook for the family of Jeremiah Wilcox, a local industrialist. Strangely enough, the parlor from that house is now one of the period rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some years ago I took my mother (Ita) to see the room and she recalled being in it when she was a child.
I was able to visit Rose’s hometown of Clara on my first trip to Ireland. I didn’t have much to go on other than that her relatives owned a store there. They didn’t know what to make of me at first but figured out that I was “Rose’s people” and was quickly welcomed into the family for a memorable visit.
Growing up in Meriden, Connecticut, our family very much identified with our Irish roots but didn’t belong to any Irish organizations, take step-dancing or tin flute lessons until the Clancy brothers started showing up on American TV. Then I became a big fan of Irish music and fondly remember when my parents took us to see them in a concert at Woolsey Hall at Yale University.
Probably the next most Irish thing I did was to take a college senior seminar on Irish history. I researched The Great Hunger, right down to growing potatoes in my dorm room.
After college, I moved to Washington, D.C. where I picked up an interest in Irish traditional music through frequent visits to “The Dubliner” — the pub that was the center for Irish music there at that time.
After four years in D.C., a friend and I did a three-month trek through Europe landing in London, hitchhiking to Holyhead, Wales for the ferry to Dublin. After a few days in Dublin we searched out my roots Clara, Co Offaly. We crossed the country to Galway and out through Connemara to Clifden before hitchhiking our way to Rosslare for the 24-hour ferry to France.
One February, I took advantage of a deep-discounted airfare to go to Dublin for a weekend, with the goal of attending Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown.
Another trip I took was with a group of Irish American sports writers in the early ’80s. My most riveting memory was crossing the troubled border en route to Enniskillen, a very serious and sobering experience.
I traveled to Dublin a few years ago for a business conference, a week or so before Christmas, — a magical time to be there. I took my wife and daughter to Ireland a few summers ago, touring Belfast, Dublin, Galway and returned to explore Connemara again. My most recent excursion to Ireland was focused on a conference in Belfast where I was honored as a 2019 Belfast Homecoming Ambassador.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your Irish heritage?
I am constantly learning more about Irish history, culture and the arts and getting to know my heritage better. That’s a major theme in “Irish Stew,” a podcast I co-host with Dubliner Martin Nutty which promotes the Global Irish Conversation.
I’m fascinated by the idea of the emerging Global Irish Nation. It includes the Irish on the island, the diaspora around the world, and the “affinity” diaspora — those people without Irish heritage who are drawn to Ireland through Irish arts, business in Ireland, tourism and more.