Like many immigrant peoples, Irish Americans have a way of sticking together. How else to explain the scene at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria last month, when Morgan Stanley CEO Phil Purcell, the subject of criticism in recent weeks over his stewardship of the securities firm, accepted a leadership award at a black-tie dinner full of Wall Street dignitaries?
Purcell, 62, received the Leslie C. Quick Jr. Leadership Award from the American Ireland Fund, a New Yorkbased philanthropic organization celebrating its 30th anniversary. The award is named for a founder of discount brokerage Quick & Reilly, which is now part of Bank of America.
Purcell, who declined to comment on the problems at Morgan Stanley, recently joined the AIF board and was one of many notable financiers in attendance. Among the others: Kip Condron, CEO of AXA Financial; John Duffy, chairman and CEO of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods; Bob McCann, a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch; John Murphy, chairman and CEO of OppenheimerFunds; and Tom O’Neill, a principal at Sandler O’Neill & Partners.
During the past decade or so, Wall Streeters have become a big source of support for the group, which is an offshoot of the Ireland Fund founded in 1976 by Sir Anthony O’Reilly, chairman of crystal and china maker Waterford Wedgwood. The AIF has been chaired since 1992 by Loretta Brennan Glucksman, wife of former Lehman Brothers chairman Lew Glucksman.
Condron in particular has been instrumental in recruiting fellow financial executives to the organization. “Through the art of twisting arms, he’s brought in a whole bunch of other houses,” says Brennan Glucksman, who was serenaded toward evening’s end with a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” led by Irish tenor Ronan Tynan. The dinner drew some 1,400 people and raised $3.1 million for the fund.
