The Irish Immigrant who became a titan of Wall Street. Denis Kelleher, the son of a shoemaker, immigrated to New York in 1958, at age 18, with $1.50 in his pocket. He was in search of a better life and determined to provide for his widowed mother back home. In a matter of days the bright young Kerry man charmed his way into a job in Merrill Lynch. In less than a month he went … [Read more...] about Denis Kelleher: Irish America Hall of Fame
Finance
Kevin Murray
Kevin E. Murray is an executive vice president and chief information officer for AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company. He is also a member of the company’s executive management committee and of the board of directors of AXA Tech, which is responsible for all data processing services for the global AXA Group. Before joining AXA Equitable in 2005, Kevin served as group CIO for … [Read more...] about Kevin Murray
Diamond Jim
The charmed life of James Buchanan Brady, who rose from humble origins to become one of the wealthiest men of his day. There have been many times in my life when a situation develops where I fear I am going to fail. Whenever the odds against me seem insurmountable or I cannot think of a solution, I remind myself of an individual who faced complete ruin after achieving … [Read more...] about Diamond Jim
The 2009 Wall Street 50 Awards
The annual Wall Street 50 event brought together national leaders from every sector of the financial world. Police commissioner Ray Kelly, Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Chairman of The American Ireland Fund, and many other luminaries from the Irish-American community gathered to celebrate the honorees. Of the evening’s many highlights were the words, excerpted below, offered by … [Read more...] about The 2009 Wall Street 50 Awards
The First Word: Finding Strength in Our Ancestors
“There’s no sense of entitlement, no sense of placement, it’s all a sense of you’ve got to go out and work hard to get there. It doesn’t all break your way all the time, so you’ve got to just power through it. I think that’s deeply imbedded in the culture of the Irish.” – Brian Moynihan, whose ancestors left Ireland in 1850. I am remembering a day around this time of year in … [Read more...] about The First Word: Finding Strength in Our Ancestors