Photo: Brad Balfour
Exclusive Q&A by Brad Balfour
The Irish Business Organization has been a gateway to the larger Irish community in NYC for many newcomers to this country and for Irish Americans who want more engagement with those of Irish heritage. It has also had a place in the Line of March for New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade — the oldest and largest in the world.
The first NYC parade was held in 1762 and its been a traditional expression of Irish pride ever since. From pipe-&-drum bands to dancers and performers, midtown Manhattan transforms into a sea of green-garbed revelers every year as witnesses to this festive event along Fifth Avenue. Running from the 40s to 79th Street, more than 150,000 people march in the parade every year. And more than two million spectators cheer them on.
On the evening of February 12th at the Bank of Ireland NYC Hub, the 2025 IBO Grand Marshal Seán O’Dowd and his Aides — JB Allen, Paul Finnegan and Caoimhe McGonigle — were installed to lead the IBO in this unforgettable experience. Attending the event were members and friends who witnessed the sashes being placed on him and his team. As they have for years, members, family and friends march in the parade as they celebrate this day.And as an IBO activist and member of the advisory board, O’Dowd certainly has the business credentials to handle the
And as an IBO activist and member of the advisory board, O’Dowd certainly has the business credentials to handle the process. Currently, he’s a Managing Director for Silvercrest Asset Management, focused on advising about liquidity events, independent valuation analyses, restructurings and business success planning.
Prior to joining Silvercrest, O’Dowd spent 13 years at Bessemer Trust, where he helped create Bessemer Trust’s Family Company Advisory group, which provides corporate finance advisory services to clients. He has also worked in investment banking within Lehman Brothers’ Power Group and on corporate finance and valuation work at Ernst & Young and KPMG. O’Dowd holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He is also a CFA Charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts.
In addition, he’s on the Emerald Isle Immigration Center’s board and is a North American Ambassador for the Celtic FC Foundation. O’Dowd is also involved with the Sigma Chi Fraternity and was awarded the Significant Sig Award in 2022. He was one of the Distinguished Visitors for the Krach Leadership Workshop during the summer of 2024.
This Q&A was conducted online this week in anticipation of the March on Monday.
Q: Talk about your goals and dreams for the IBO.
Seán O’Dowd: My goals and dreams for the IBO, as I was First VP for three years, were to carry on the IBO’s tradition of “network, communicate, and reciprocate.” The IBO Board I was a part of –– which during my tenure included Paul Finnegan, Maura Clare, Colleen Berry Conway, Peter O’Neill, Noreen Bowden, and Maria Smith –– was a unique group of people who really wanted to expand the IBO’s outreach within the Irish-American community and to make sure we had an amazing 50th anniversary celebration. I am staying on with the IBO as part of their Advisory Board where I will be solely focused on the J1 Graduate Visa holder initiative.
Q: How did you get involved with the IBO anyhow?
Seán O’Dowd: Three and half years ago, Paul Finnegan –– who I had always been a fan of given his legendary status within the Irish community –– had asked to meet him for a coffee. We met at the Yale Club and he inquired if I would be interested in being First VP of the IBO as he was going to be elected President. Given the fact that I knew Paul, and that this was for him a community commitment and not one of ego, I basically signed up for the Board commitment in relatively short order. It has been one of the best decisions of my life/career.
Q: What does it mean to be the Grand Marshall?
Seán O’Dowd: To be a Grand Marshall for the IBO means to stand on the shoulders of Giants within the Irish community. You have Paul Finnegan, Nick Malito, John Lee and now Dr. Janet Walsh as Past Presidents of the IBO. These are people we as a community hold in high esteem. For me to lead them down 5th Avenue on the big day is amazing.
Q: The IBO provides a very different group in the march — it’s a very inclusive group. Can you comment on that?
Sean O’Dowd: We are as inclusive an Irish-American group as you can get. We have folks who are entrepreneurs, folks from academia, people from Wall Street, various professionals, and most importantly anyone who has an interest in Irish Culture.
Q: What kind of outreach do you do to get new members and help students coming here?
Seán O’Dowd: Around two years ago, Paul Finnegan, Siobhan Dennehy (President of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center) and I met to discuss the number of J1s Graduate Visa Holders that were in NYC and the fact that the numbers were increasing. We first started to create a J1 Visa Holder Resources page on the IBO website. Then we started to do coordinated events (Christmas of 2022) where we would offer heavily discounted tickets for J1s who didn’t have the funds to go back home to Ireland and spend Christmas with their families.As the issue with the J1s started to get traction, we were not the only group out there doing this.
We then formed “Graduate Gateway”, which included other groups and folks such as Jane McCooey of Women With Ambition, Gavin McMahon and Feargall Kenny of Digital Irish, Sophie Colgan of Navigating New York, Gemma Allen and John Buckley. All of these folks had been working with J1s for years. Now we had a consolidated group to be as effective as possible. This whole Graduate Gateway is still in its relatively early days, but we do see that the future of Irish America is very bright, especially as the housing crisis in Dublin is not resolved.
Q: What does it mean to help newcomers to New York? What would you hope to do for them?
Seán O’Dowd: To be able to help newcomers, who for the most part for me are J1s, is a great way to give back. I should say every time I interact with a J1, I see my father –– Patrick Joseph O’Dowd –– who came to Canada in the 1960s. He’d also had stints in London and Belfast. I remember the stories he told me of people who took the time and offered a hand of help to him. Those stories and thoughts never left me.
I should mention that my father passed away in 2001 and I made sure I brought his ashes home to the family grave just outside Enniscrone, County Sligo. I should also mention that once my family in Sligo heard the news of my father taking a stroke prior to his passing, that his Brother and Best Friend, Michael John, started to decline. Once my father’s funeral was done, I boarded a flight to Ireland and drove all night to get to the hospital in Sligo Town.
When I arrived, I was absolutely whipped, but myself and my cousins made sure to let Michael John know that Seán was here with “Paddy Joe.” Uncle Michael John passed away a half hour later. He had waited for his brother. They were buried together a few days later and the whole town of Kilglass came out – that is a memory that I will never forget. I should also mention that Michael John’s eldest son, Padraic and his amazing wife Martina (from Galway) are coming to the US and will be marching with us on the big day.
Q: How many times have you visited Ireland? What were some of your experiences with Ireland like?
Seán O’Dowd: I first went to Ireland when I was 13 and it was to visit all of my relatives in Kilglass County Sligo. This was back in 1993 and I have been coming back fairly regularly ever since. That’s including a visit to Belfast in 2019 where I was awarded the Belfast Homecoming medal for work I had done for the Irish community on both sides of the Atlantic.
A big shout out to Máirtín Ó Muilleoir for that recognition.My favorite trip to Ireland was a visit I did with my family in August of 2023. It was the first time my wife, Kristan and our twin daughters, Maeve and Emily, came to Ireland. We had a blast. In addition to seeing their relatives, we took tours of Dublin, saw the Cliffs of Moher, visited Inisheer, toured around Galway, and did horseback riding in Westport County Mayo in the background of Croagh Patrick. They had such a great time, they cannot wait to go back.
Q: Where did you grow up and live now?
Seán O’Dowd: I grew up in Ladner, a small farming and fishing village just south of Vancouver, B.C. Canada. As part of growing up in the area, I attended Vancouver College, which is a Christian Brothers School. I competed on the track team as part of the overall “Fighting Irish” athletics program at the school. [https://www.vancouvercollege.ca/]
Today we have myself, Kristan, Maeve, Emily and our two dogs Darby and Róisín in East Norwalk, CT. Here are a couple of photos as well — one of my daughters in front of The O’Dowd Castle in Easky (County Sligo). And the other in front of the O’Dowd family plot just outside of Enniscrone, where my father Patrick Joseph O’Dowd is buried.
Q: In learning about your Irish heritage how did that help define you and what did you take from it? Obviously with that in mind I assume you grew up catholic. How did that also inform you?
Q: How did learning about your Irish heritage help define you and what did you take from it? Obviously, with that in mind, I assume you grew up Catholic
Seán O’Dowd: I would say that growing up with an Irish father and going to Vancouver College –– where the student body consisted largely of the sons of immigrants from all around the world –– developed in me the awareness of opportunities in academics and, more broadly, to include athletics.It also instilled in me the desire to be part of a community.
That’s part of the reason I joined the Sigma Chi fraternity during my second year in college at the University of British Columbia. The focus on community and identifying potential opportunities to achieve in business have stayed with me since. Those are key aspects of who I am.
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