On June 30, Irish America magazine will celebrate its inaugural Top 50 Power Women Awards with a luncheon at the New York Yacht Club in Manhattan. The list recognizes the achievements of the most influential and innovative Irish and Irish American women across all fields. From finance and business professionals to media personalities, political figures, and healthcare workers, the women featured on the list have become leading voices in the corporate and cultural American landscape. The inaugural Irish America Top 50 Power Women list will be published in the June / July 2016 issue of Irish America.
Irish Ambassador to the U.S. Anne Anderson, the first woman to hold the position, Maureen Mitchell, president of Global Sales and Marketing for GE Asset Management, and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Gillian Murphy will serve as the luncheon’s guest speakers.
The inaugural honorees include senior U.S. Senator for the State of Maine Susan Collins; author Jennifer Egan, whose work has received the Pulitzer Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship; Margaret Molloy, global chief marketing officer for Siegel+Gale, one of the largest marketing firms in the U.S.; President of the Service Employee International Union Mary Kay Henry; historian Christine Kinealy, who is the founding director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute; Gillian Murphy, principal dancer for the world-renowned American Ballet Theatre; chief of the Division of Nephrology at Mount Sinai Hospital Dr. Barbara Murphy, one of the few female division chiefs in the U.S. and one of only three women to be appointed chair of medicine at a top medical school; and Stella O’Leary, president and co-founder of Irish American Democrats.
Since its inception in October 1985, Irish America has become a powerful vehicle for expression on a range of political, economic, social, and cultural themes that are of paramount importance to the Irish in the United States. It has helped reestablish the Irish ethnic identity in the U.S. (34.7 million according to the last U.S. census) and highlights the best political and business leaders, organizations, artists, writers, and community figures among the Irish in America.
About Ambassador Anne Anderson
Ambassador Anderson was born in Clonmel, County Tipperary and was appointed as Ireland’s 17th Ambassador to the United States in August 2013 after serving in the Department of Foreign Affairs for more than 40 years.
Following a range of assignments at home and abroad, she took up her first posting as Ambassador in 1995. Prior to her current assignment in DC, she has served as Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (2009–2013); Ambassador to France (2005-2009); Permanent Representative of Ireland to the European Union, Brussels (2001-2005); and Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations, Geneva (1995-2001). She holds a B.A. in history and politics from University College, Dublin, and a diploma in legal studies from Kings Inn, Dublin.
Ambassador Anderson has undertaken a wide range of responsibilities in her assignments to date. Highlights of her multilateral work have included chairing the UN Commission on Human Rights (1999) and heading the Irish team in Brussels during Ireland’s EU Presidency in 2004 (she was awarded European Voice “Diplomat of the Year” in recognition of her Presidency role). During her New York assignment, she oversaw a review of the UN Peace-building machinery and was tasked by the President of the General Assembly with facilitating preparations for the 2013 UN Special Event on the Millennium Development Goals.
About Maureen Mitchell
Maureen Mitchell is an inspirational, strategically-focused investment management executive with a noteworthy history of consistently transforming large financial service organizations to deliver significant increases in revenue and sales. Recognized for her global sales thought leadership, coupled with rigorous execution, she has deep expertise in capital markets, distribution and marketing.
Maureen’s consensus-building leadership style has consistently produced outstanding results within the investment industry. Currently, she is President, Global Sales and Marketing for the asset management arm of GE, the world’s Digital Industrial Company. Previously, Maureen was recruited to Highland Capital Management, LP as Managing Director, Global Head of Institutional Sales, Client Service and Consultant Relations. Earlier in her career, she was Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Distribution at Bear Stearns Asset Management, leading the global asset management business. At the onset of her career, Maureen was Vice President, Consultant Relations for Scudder Kemper and Vice President, Endowments and Foundations for U.S. Trust Company. She has served as a director on the investment boards of a number of U.S. and European funds. Maureen is currently a Director for GE Asset Management and GE Investment Distributors, President of GE Investment Distributors, and an active member of the Investment Company Institute (ICI) Board of Governors.
A passionate advocate for higher education, Maureen has served on a number of nonprofit boards, including the Lebanese American University Board where she chaired both the Audit and Investment Committees. Currently, she sits on the boards of the 21st Century Foundation for The City College of New York and She’s the First, which named her its 2015 Mentor of the Year. Maureen is a frequent speaker on women’s leadership, business development and client management best practices.
Raised in New York City, Maureen is an honors graduate of The City College of New York and received a graduate degree from Fordham University. A four-time Irish America Business 100 honoree, she is a first-generation Irish American with roots in both county Sligo, where her father worked as a lobsterman before immigrating to the U.S., and county Galway, the birthplace of her mother. She has two daughters, with whom she has traveled throughout Ireland.
About Gillian Murphy
Gillian Murphy joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in August 1996, was promoted to Soloist in 1999 and Principal Dancer in 2002. She created Clara, the Princess in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, leading roles in Glow-Stop, Kaleidoscope, Rabbit and Rogue and Thirteen Diversions and featured roles in After You, One of Three and Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison.
Raised in Florence, South Carolina, Gillian Murphy began her ballet training at the age of three in Belgium and continued her ballet classes at the age of five. After training in South Carolina as a member of the Columbia City Ballet, she continued her studies at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. In 1994, at the age of 15, Murphy was a finalist at the Jackson International Ballet Competition. In 1995, she was awarded the Prix de Lausanne Espoir after performing the final round at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. In 1996, she was a National YoungArts Foundation Winner in Dance. In 1998, she was honored with a Princess Grace Foundation-USA grant. The Princess Grace Foundation awarded her its highest honor, the Statue Award, in 2009. In May 2014, Murphy was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from her alma mater, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Murphy has appeared as a guest artist in Japan, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Canada and throughout the United States. She made her debut with the Mariinsky Ballet in March 2008, dancing Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. She danced La Bayadère with The Australian Ballet in 2014. Other guest appearances include the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Kiev Ballet and the 2009 world premiere of a new production of The Nutcracker, directed and choreographed by Ethan Stiefel for the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. ♦
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For media inquiries, contact Adam Farley.
For sponsorship opportunities and event reservations, contact Kate Overbeck, or see the event invite here.
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