Mark O'Brien

Consulting with corporations, governments and NGOs/IPAs on global location strategy, corporate development, M&A, workforce managment, tax and government incentives.

• Responsible for leading North American Financial Institutions partnership & strategic relationship management team from New York
• Partnerships client portfolio including the likes of JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, State Street, MetLife & Wells Fargo
• Responsible for the most strategic partnership relationships between the Ireland/EU ecosystem and U.S. Financial Institutions with significant technology, operations and European regulatory hub investments in Ireland/Europe
• Highly skilled at deepening existing and growing new relationships across all divisions (ops/tech/c-suite) inside financial institutions to move forward complex projects that engage with multidisciplinary internal divisions
• Providing C-Suite leadership teams in the world's Fortune 500 financial institutions with advice and guidance on European, offshore corporate expansion projects, cross-border investments & negotiating financial incentives.
• Negotiating complex EU/Ireland financial incentive contracts with financial institutions
• Providing connectivity between global financial institutions and Ireland's Department of Prime Minister, Dept. of Finance, Dept. of Commerce & Ireland's Central Bank & Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FED/SEC/CFTC equivalent).
• Planning, executing, hosting & chairing high level influencing engagements between Ireland's Prime Minister & C-suite executives to further strategic policy goals.
• Key stakeholder in developing IDA Ireland's last two development strategies most recently 'Driving Recovery and Sustainable Growth 2021 – 2024' AND the Irish government's 'Ireland for Finance' a strategy for the development of Ireland’s international financial services sector to 2025.
• Responsible for the procurement, appointment & on-going work program management of Ireland's Global Tax Advisory consulting relationships in Washington D.C., most recently with Washington Council Ernst & Young.
• Developed & implemented a 2016 financial service strategy related to the opportunity for Ireland presented by the UK's exit from the EU single market (Brexit). Result - Ireland secured the largest share of investments exiting the City of London beating larger and more established financial services centres Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam & Luxemburg.
• Building, analyzing & interpreting complex financial models associated with incentives & location strategy.
• Managing North American resources to ensure execution & delivery of strategic projects.

• Managed a portfolio of 80+ existing client companies engaging with C-suite leadership in New York, Boston & Toronto around subsidiary activity in Ireland
• Collaborated with senior management to develop strategic initiatives and long term goals for Ireland's International Financial Services Centre (IFSC)
• Worked closely with the International Financial Services (IFS) Division's global team in identifying and winning new name investment opportunities that meet targets
• Targeted & secured over $250m of foreign direct investment with a job creation impact of c.4,000 incremental jobs & annualized corporate tax receipts of ~$120m
• Delivered strategic client focused relationship management and after care service to global companies & their leadership teams
• Identified, networked and developed relationships with key business owners, decision makers and influencers within client companies & government in order to secure investments
• Developed and implemented new strategies and policies to establish long-term business objectives and provide strong and sustainable organizational leadership.

• Produced detailed and relevant reports for use in making business decisions & developing new initiatives.
• Managed key group tasked with exploring 'blue sky' initiatives as well as benchmarking & expert interviews around competing locations & investment promotion agencies (IPA's).
• Conducted thorough reviews of operations to devise and deploy improvement strategies across departments
• Evaluating new tech stack, workflows & IDA Ireland's digitization journey
• Gathered, documented and modeled complex data to assess business trends.
• Compiled research data and gave professional presentations highlighting finds and recommended optimizations.

• Built, strengthened and influenced a range of key stakeholder relationships in the South East Region of Ireland including Local Authority CEOs, Chambers of Commerce & elected representatives
• Developed local economic development strategy for the region reflecting the unique characteristics and competitive advantage's of the region vis-à-vis foreign direct investment
• Proactively engaged with IDA Ireland's overseas office network to ensure broad familiarity of the regions value proposition & strategy
• Organized, managed, prepared and accompanied target company C-level executives on due diligence visits to the region
• Presented at company meetings, visits to influencers and client engagements with peer companies
• Strengthened relationships with the existing local FDI base, regularly meeting and assisting existing clients continuously to transform their operations in conjunction with the Project teams