We welcome Declan Kelly, Bartholomew Murphy & Mike Sheehan to the Board of Directors of The American Ireland Fund.

Declan Kelly : New York, NY
President and CEO of Financial Dynamics in the United States. Declan is a main Board Director of FD International, the holding company which manages the Financial Dynamics network worldwide. He also holds the position of Chairman of FD Ireland, a business which he founded a number of years ago. Selected by Irish America in 2003 as one of its honorees in its annual Business 100 awards list—recognizing the top 100 Irish American business people of the year—Declan was a member of the senior management team which negotiated the management buy-out of FD International in July, 2003.

Having enjoyed a distinguished career in journalism, including his selection as the AT Cross Business Journalist of the Year in 1994, Declan worked for a number of leading communications companies, including Fleishman Hillard, before starting his own business in 1999. This business was subsequently acquired by the then holding company, which owned Financial Dynamics—thus beginning his career within the FD international network.

In his role as President and CEO of Financial Dynamics in the United States, Declan oversees the company’s operations in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Declan is a senior advisor to several multinational corporations, Governments and representative organizations. He specializes in crisis management assignments and corporate communications, and also has extensive international M&A experience both here in the US and also in Europe.

Declan received the 2005 Alumni Award for Business and Commerce from the National University of Ireland, Galway. In 2004, Declan began his tenure as a member of the Board of Directors of Glucksman Ireland House at New York University.

Bartholomew Murphy : San Francisco, CA
Bart Murphy is a real estate investor and developer in San Francisco. The eldest of six children, born in California to parents from counties Kerry and Clare, Bart grew up near Cashel, County Tipperary. He attended Saint Joseph’s Christian Brothers School, Thurles, received his primary law degree from University College Dublin in 1981 and graduate law degree from the Honorable Society Of King’s Inns, Dublin in 1983. Bart practiced as a barrister in Dublin for 3 years before coming back to San Francisco in 1986 where he practiced commercial and real estate law until 1998.

Bart serves on the boards of several Irish related non-profits and charities in the U.S. and Ireland. He is a director and past president of the Coalition for Better Housing and was a member of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Transition Team on affordable housing issues. Since 1997, Bart has served as a Commissioner of the San Francisco Rent Control Board.
Bart is married to Eileen Moore and they have one child, Denis.

Mike Sheehan : Boston, MA
Mike is the first non-founder to hold the title of CEO at Hill, Holliday, which is one of the 15 largest agencies in the United States.
Mike joined Hill, Holliday in 2000 from DDB Chicago, where he was executive creative director. Prior to that, he was executive creative director of Hill, Holliday’s Boston office. He’s also worked at Leo Burnett in Chicago, as well as Clarke Goward and Ingalls Quinn & Johnson in Boston.

As a creative director and copywriter, Mike has created campaigns for many leading U.S. brands, including McDonald’s, John Hancock, Dunkin’ Donuts, Tyco, Fidelity Investments, Maytag, Gatorade and Budweiser.

Mike’s work has received virtually every local, national, and international creative award, including the Grand Clio, One Show Gold, Cannes Lion, Best of Show at Hatch, and Communication Arts. In 1998, he was named Adweek’s National Creative Director of the Year.

Mike attended the U.S. Naval Academy and received his B.A. in English from Saint Anselm College, where he currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Thayer Academy and Cardinal Cushing School, where he chairs the Capital Campaign. He lives in Hingham, Massachusetts with his wife, Maureen.