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WallStreet 50. Part 1
The importance of philanthropy is one of the striking features of
business life in the U.S. It is almost expected for wealthy business people
to devote large amounts of time and money to good causes.
“For me, it is a very important part of who I am,” says Bob McCann.
“It is not just, or even mainly, altruism that leads some people to get
involved. . . . I did it for the most commercial – and most New York – of
all reasons. Then the oddest thing happened. I started to care.”
- David Wighton, Financial Times, 5/4/05
The Irish have long had a place on Wall Street. In 1868, John J. Kiernan
published a financial news-sheet. He stayed ahead of the game by rowing
out to the ships in New York Harbor and collecting the latest news from
London and Europe.
Brooklyn-born, the son of Irish immigrants, Kiernan will be remembered
for hiring Wall Street Journal founders, Charles Henry Dow and William David
Jones, as early leg-men for his growing financial news bureau.
His former office is now the site of the New York Stock Exchange.
Back in the 1860s, the area around Wall Street was teeming with Irish
immigrants. Fleeing hunger and persecution in Ireland, they could hardly
have foreseen the great heights to which the Irish would climb in the U.S.
Today, the Irish are involved in every aspect of American life. But even
as they assimilate and move up the ladder they still take pride in their
Irish heritage.
And while our Wall Street 50 list shows the extraordinary influence of
the Irish in the financial sector, what really makes our Wall Street 50
unique is the number of people on the list who are involved in community
building and charitable organizations. This empathy for others and desire
to “pay if forward” is something that those immigrants of old would be most
proud of.
- Editor Patricia Harty
 
Many of our Top 50 trace their ancestry to at least two counties.
21 of Ireland’s 32 counties represented.
 Nancy
Barry
Women’s World Banking
As president of Women’s World Banking since 1990, Nancy Barry has been
at the forefront of microfinance. Founded in 1979, Women’s World Banking
is a not-for-profit financial institution with 55 microfinance institutions
all over the world providing financial services to 15 million low-income
women and men in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America and
the Middle East.
Barry is recognized as a leader in the world of microfinance and is a
frequent public speaker. Prior to joining Women’s World Banking, she spent
15 years at World Bank where she pioneered the bank’s involvement in small
enterprises.
Barry received a degree in economics from Stanford University, and holds
an MBA from Harvard Business School. She serves on the Advisory Board of
the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative and chairs the
Donald A. Strauss Foundation Board. For her achievements, Barry was awarded
the Forbes Executive Women’s Summit Trailblazer Award in 2002 and the Kellogg-McKinsey
Award for Distinguished Leadership in 2004.
 Peter
J. Barry
Bear Stearns & Co.
Peter Barry is managing director of small companies at Bear Stearns.
He joined the company, which has a branch in Dublin, in 1997, and his research
focus with the company includes industrial technology, security products
and services, as well as an array of distribution companies. He has been
in the investment industry for over 44 years, and has been cited on numerous
occasions as an Institutional Investor all-star, and has held positions
as both Research Analyst and Research Director at several investment banking
firms, including E.F. Hutton, Rothschild, Inc., and Gerard Klauer Mattison.
Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Barry was associated with Deutsche Morgan
Grenfell with responsibility for the analysis and coverage of a broad array
of small and mid-cap growth stocks. He received his B.S. in Finance from
Boston College. He is second-generation Irish-American on his father’s side,
with roots tracing back to country Cork. He is married with two children.
 David
Brennan
Bear Stearns & Co.
David Brennan is a managing director of Bear Stearns & Co., and is also
the national director of the Bear Stearns Advisory Services Alliance.
As national director, it is Brennan’s responsibility to make sure that
the Alliance does its job of helping accountants, lawyers, agents, and other
professional advisors expand the services for high-net worth clients.
Brennan joined Bear Stearns in 2003. Previously, he was a managing director
at Oppenheimer & Co., an account executive at Merrill Lynch, and a lending
officer at Citibank. He is also a graduate of the Chemical Bank Training
Program, where he was a credit analyst.
A second-generation Irish-American, Brennan received his BA in history
from Fordham University. He has wide spread connections in Ireland. His
father’s family is from Kilkenny, while his mother’s parents are from Leitrim
and Sligo.
Brennan enjoys membership in the Irish Georgian Society, NYU’s Glucksman
Ireland House, and the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. In 1997, he and
his wife traveled to Ireland and acquired a historic Georgian house, a former
rectory, in County Limerick, which they spent two years restoring to its
original state.
 David
M. Carroll
Wachovia Corporation
President and executive officer David Carroll became head of the capital
management group at the Wachovia Corporation at the beginning of 2005. Wachovia
employs 96,000 people and boasts annual revenue of $23 billion. Within Carroll’s
department alone there are 20,000 employees with $5.5 billion in annual
revenue. He provides leadership to the capital management group, which includes
four core businesses: retail brokerage, asset management, insurance and
corporate and institutional trust.
Carroll joined Wachovia in 1981 and has enjoyed a number of corporate
positions as he swiftly moved up the ranks to his current post. Previous
positions included a stint as the head of corporate support services and
merger integration, as the chief eCommerce and Technology officer and president
of First Union, Florida.
Carroll, a native of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, received a bachelor’s
of science in business administration from the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. He is now based in Charlotte, North Carolina where he lives
with his wife and their two children. Carroll serves on the board of the
Charlotte Latin School and the Mint Museum. He is a fourth-generation Irish-American
whose ancestors hail from County Wicklow.
 Christopher
M. Condron
AXA Financial
Christopher “Kip” Condron, president and CEO of AXA Financial, Inc.,
is also a member of the AXA Group Management Board. Condron joined AXA immediately
following his role as president and COO of The Mellon Financial Corporation
and chairman and CEO of the Dreyfus Corporation. Condron began his career
at C.S. McKee and Co. before forming his own financial planning firm, Condron
Associates. When the firm was acquired by AYCO Corporation, he became co-president.
In 1989, Condron joined The Boston Company, now Mellon Private Asset Management,
where he was named executive vice president. In 1995, he took over the responsibility
for the Dreyfus Corporation.
Condron received his bachelor’s degree in business from the University
of Scranton where he is a former trustee and heads the President’s Business
Council. He is a member of the Investment Company Institute’s Board of Governors
and its Executive Committee, a board member of the Financial Services Roundtable,
and a director and treasurer of The American Ireland Fund.
Married with three children, Condron is a third-generation Irish-American
with roots in Donegal and Cork.
 Noreen
M. Culhane
New York Stock Exchange
As executive vice president for the New York Stock Exchange’s Global
Corporate Group, Noreen Culhane is responsible for the Exchange’s efforts
to attract new listings and to serve companies already listed. She manages
Business Development, Client Service, Marketing, Sales Support, and the
Initial Public Offering process and Structured Products for the Exchange’s
business worldwide.
A first-generation Irish-American, with roots in County Kerry, Culhane
believes that strong relationships founded on mutual trust and respect are
essential to economic growth and peace and that Ireland and the U.S., should
lead the way and be a model for others.
A native New Yorker, Culhane obtained an undergraduate degree from the
College of Mount St. Vincent, where she serves on the board, and a graduate
degree in education from the College of New Rochelle. She also completed
the Advanced Management Program at Harvard, and serves on the Management
Committee for the NYSE, and the Fund Raising Board of the Borough of Manhattan
Community College. She is a member of the Economic Club of New York.
 Denis
Curran
Bank of Ireland Asset Management
Denis Curran, Director and President International of Bank of Ireland
Asset Management (BIAM), is responsible for the investment management arm
of the Bank of Ireland Group, managing over $46 billion in global securities.
His responsibilities include supervising all of BIAM’s operations outside
of Ireland. Before he accepted this position in 1999, Curran was the president
of BIAM’s North America operation. Additionally, Curran is the Director
and President of the New Ireland Fund (a closed-end country fund), and a
director of Iridian Asset Management, a specialist US Equity manager based
in Westport, Connecticut. He began his career in 1974 with the Irish Development
Authority, a branch of the Irish government. He advanced to become director
of the New York office, where he was in charge of investment by North American
companies into Ireland.
Born and raised in Belfast, Curran is an economics graduate of Queens
University, Belfast. He currently lives in Cos Cob, Connecticut with his
wife and three daughters.
 Patrick
E. Curtin
The Bank of New York
As the Executive Vice President of Institutional Investor Services, Pat
Curtin’s decisions play a key role in determining the Bank of New York’s
strategy when it comes to their investments. His responsibilities include
all of the products and services for the clients, including custody, investment
accounting, performance measurement, benefit disbursements, and similar
value services.
Before Curtin took on this role at the Bank of New York, which he joind
in 1997, he served as the Global Head of the Insurance Industry Division.
Curtin earned a BA in economics from Baruch College in Manhattan, and
received his MBA in finance with distinction from Long Island University.
Between 1994-96, he was an adjunct at the University of Bridgeport, where
he taught economics in the business school to foreign students studying
for an MBA.
A second-generation Irish-American with roots in Knocknagoshel, County
Kerry, Curtin supports the United Way of New York City, the St. Jude’s Children’s
Research Hospital, and is a member of the American Ireland Fund. He is married
with two children.
 Emmett
J. Daly
Sandler O’Neill & Partners, LP
As one of the principals in Sandler O’Neill’s Investment Banking group,
Emmett Daly takes on wide-ranging responsibilities for the firm. They include
mergers & acquisitions and capital financing for banks, thrifts, broker-dealers,
and asset management firms. Recently, Daly played an important role in PNC’s
acquisition of Riggs National and a recapitalization and management change
for The Banc Corporation.
Outside of the business world, Daly shows his commitment to the community
by his work with the Student/Partner Alliance. He is a trustee and an original
partner of the organization, which is a scholarship and mentoring program
for residents of Newark, New Jersey not far from his current residence in
Summit.
Daly received his undergraduate degree from the College of Holy Cross,
where he majored in economics. After his time with the Holy Cross Crusaders,
he moved to Chapel-Hill where he earned an MBA from the Kenan-Flager Business
School at the University of North Carolina. He and his wife have three children.
Daly’s third-generation Irish-American roots go back to counties Cork and
Waterford.
 Thomas
Dorsey
Dorsey, Wright & Assoc.
Thomas Dorsey is the founder and president of Dorsey, Wright, & Assoc.,
which deals with equities, fixed income, mutual funds, commodities, or ETFs.
The company primarily caters to professional money managers, but it also
takes on larger investors, and current clients include individuals, banks,
trusts, and charitable institutions.
Before founding DWA, Dorsey directed and managed the Options Strategy
& Risk Management division at Wheat, First Securities.
Dorsey is also an accomplished author. His works include Tom Dorsey’s
Trading Tips: A Playbook for Stock Market Success and Keep Peddling Zen
Farmer. He is a regular contributor to Fox News “Cavuto for Business” and
Bloomberg Television’s “Bulls & Bears.” His civic awards include the Business
Leadership Award from Virginia Military Institute. He received degrees in
business administration and economics from Virginia Commonwealth University.
In 2000, he was named alumni of the year by VCU. A third-generation Irish-American
with roots in counties Cork and Tyrone, he is married to Cindy, and they
have three grown children.
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