2018 Homecoming Ambassadors

Brian Golden was born and raised in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. He graduated from The Boston Latin School, Harvard College, and the College of William and Mary School of Law. He received a graduate degree from the US Army War College.

After law school, Brian joined the US Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he served on active duty for more than three years. He returned to active duty multiple times after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He remained in the US Army Reserve, recently retiring after 30 years of service as a commissioned officer. Among his assignments, he represented disabled soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, participated in the NATO peace-keeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, worked to reform detention operations in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, and served as a legal advisor with the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. At the Pentagon, he was an International and Operational Law Attorney in the Office of the Army Judge Advocate General, and he concluded his military career as Senior Legal Advisor to the Army General Counsel. 

In the administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Brian served for more than eight years as Director of the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), formerly known as the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and managed the largest building boom in Boston’s history. As the longest serving chief executive in the agency’s history, he focused on improving transparency, accountability, and community engagement, while increasing affordable housing, economic development, and climate resiliency across Boston’s neighborhoods. 

During his tenure, Brian guided more than 90 million square feet of development approvals through the BPDA’s permitting process, representing approximately $43 billion of investment, and supporting over 80,000 permanent jobs, over 90,000 construction jobs, and 46,000 additional induced (indirect) jobs.

Brian grew the BPDA’s planning capacity, overseeing completion of the first general city plan since 1965, Imagine Boston 2030, in addition to comprehensive neighborhood planning studies representing 30 percent of Boston’s land mass. As Director, Brian oversaw 20 million square feet of BPDA-owned property, including the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park (RLFMP) and the Charlestown Navy Yard (CNY), prioritizing the use of public land for public good. 

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In July 2022, Brian traveled to Singapore to accept an international planning award on behalf of the City of Boston. The 2020 Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize honored Boston with a Special Mention based on the city’s holistic work on climate resilience, improving housing affordability and mobility options, and fostering civic participation. Boston was the only city in the United States honored in the 2020 prize cycle, and one of only four cities honored worldwide.

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Brian was elected four times to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he served the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. In the legislature, he focused on expansion of public charter schools as a response to under-performing traditional public school systems. He led a commission that worked to overhaul the mechanism by which the state funded public school buildings, and he played a leadership role in the defeat of a legislative attempt to restore the death penalty. 

Brian was the New England Regional Director at the US Department of Health and Human Services, Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy, and a Non-Executive Director at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. 

Brian and his wife, Kristin O’Connor Golden, are the parents of five children. They live in the Boston area.

Ciaran Sheehan is Managing Partner at Clarendon Executive, Northern Ireland’s leading executive search firm. He brings more than three decades of experience in executive search and board advisory, specialising in C-suite and non-executive appointments across the private, public, and third sectors. As a key strand of their executive search focus, Ciaran and the Clarendon Executive team have built deep connections with the Irish diaspora, successfully attracting internationally-based leaders back to Northern Ireland to advance their careers.

Beyond executive recruitment and a range of other business interests, Ciaran is a long-standing champion of youth entrepreneurship. He served as Chair of Young Enterprise Northern Ireland for seven years and now leads a US-based philanthropic foundation – Friends of Young Enterprise Foundation Inc.  The purpose of this Foundation is to raise funds and donations through networks and connections within the Irish Diaspora to help young people, especially those from deprived areas, to get engaged in entrepreneurship and build the confidence and critical skills to become empowered to create their own opportunities. 

Jack is an accomplished global business leader with over 25 years of experience in scaling enterprises and creating shareholder value.  Presently, he focuses on supporting emerging businesses both as a Member of Philadelphia based, Robin Hood Ventures and through his other endeavors as an angel investor and advisor.

Previously,  Jack enjoyed a nearly two-decade run year career run as COO and later also CFO of Martech leader MRP.  Here, a particular career highlight was the period (2014-2017) he spent living in Belfast, providing executive presence and strategic guidance to MRP’s then 150+ employee operation in the city.  Jack was greatly honored to receive a 2018 Belfast Ambassador Medal in recognition of these efforts as well as his conviction for “helping to build a better Belfast”.

Prior to MRP, Jack earned his MBA at University of Virginia, Darden School of Business, and, prior to that, held finance, marketing and business development roles at Johnson & Johnson.   He is a La Salle University graduate and remains active as an alumnus and as a member of the Presidential Advisory Board. Outside of work, he enjoys time with his wife Janelle, and three children Jack, Rory and (Belfast born) Megan, while also supporting a number of organizations committed to the betterment of Ireland.

John is an attorney and the Boston chair of the Boston Belfast Sister City Initiative. Since 2014 he has helped to develop relationships between the many cultural, educational, community, and business sectors of both cities. A native of Chelsea, MA, John is a graduate of The College of the Holy Cross and Suffolk University Law School. 

John Philip Foley (“John”) has been a Massachusetts lawyer for over 30-years.  For the past 25-years, John has been the principal attorney at Foley Law Offices, P.C., a downtown Boston law firm specializing in U.S. immigration law.

In that time, John has helped thousands of individuals enter the U.S. legally and he has been with them as they became Legal Residents or Green card holders first and later U.S. citizens.  

Even with a busy law practice, John has been active with a number of Irish and Irish-American organizations.  John was a member of the Board of Directors and General Counsel at the Irish Cultural Center in Canton, Massachusetts for nine (9) years.  In that time, John assisted with the development of a zip line ropes course on the Canton campus and brought professional rugby, musical groups and other entertainers to the ICC.

At the request of the Irish Consul General, John helped organize the committee that negotiated an agreement with the Massachusetts Resources Water Authority to cite and build the Great Hunger Memorial on Deer Island, where hundreds of Irish men, women and children died and are buried in unmarked mass graves.  John later assisted the Massachusetts Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) place two memorial tablets on Deer Island in memory of those Irish who survived the Great Hunger and the crossing of an ocean only to die in a quarantine station less than a mile from Boston. 

John was the Massachusetts coordinator for Lawyers Alliance for Justice in Ireland for more than ten (10) years.  As a member of the national group of lawyers and judges concerned with the rule of law in Northern Ireland, John assisted with the legal appeals of a number of controversial Diplock Court cases in Northern Ireland, he coordinated visits to prisons to meet republican prisoners unjustly convicted without trial by jury and he was an international observer of the contentious 12th of July parades by the Orange Order.  John worked closely with Civil Rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson until she was killed outside her home in Lurgan by a car bomb in 1999.  John testified to the international tribunal looking into Rosemary’s murder and provided first-hand evidence of the dangers she faced as a lawyer in Northern Ireland.

John is also one of the founders of WWW.GetIrishPassport.com an on-line service that assists Irish-Americans obtain Irish citizenship so they can live and work in Ireland and carry an Irish passport.  The service is set to launch in January of 2025.

John was awarded the Belfast Ambassador Medal for his on-going work over 30-years to bring peace, justice and the rule of law to Northern Ireland.  This past year, John was the recipient of the Charitable Irish Society’s Silver Key Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the immigrant community. 

John has a home in Inverin, County Galway, Ireland on the same patch of land his grandmother, Delia O’Toole Curran lived on before emigrating to the United States.

Laura Leonard is Belfast City Council’s European and International Relations Manager, based in the Place and Economy Department.

Laura has led Northern Ireland’s only dedicated European and International local government team since it was established in September 2003.  

Over the last two decades, Laura and her team have developed and delivered Belfast City Council’s first ever International Relations Framework and Action Plan and is currently managing projects with Chinese, European and North American markets, as well as fostering Belfast’s Sister City relationships with Boston, Nashville, and Shenyang. 

Belfast’s International Relations Framework aims, in partnership to promote the city internationally, with a focus on attracting international students and building education partnerships, securing business and investment, and attracting both business and leisure tourism. 

Over the past two years, Laura has also worked closely with the City Regeneration and Development team; co-managing the City Marketing programme to position the city to secure real estate investment. This work is delivered through the ‘Renewed Ambition’ public-private city partnership.

Laura also supports the promotion of international investment opportunities within the priority areas of Innovation City Belfast, Resilience and Enterprise for council, in partnership with key city players.

Mary Sugrue is the Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership. Ms. Sugrue has been with the Partnership for 33 years, serving in many capacities before assuming the role of CEO in 2016. In her tenure, the Partnership has raised over $56 million, benefiting more than 640 schools, universities, and community development initiatives. Originally from Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, she graduated from National University of Ireland Carysfort College Dublin with a degree in education and spent three years teaching primary school in Ireland. As an Irish teacher by training, she possesses a valued perspective for furthering the Partnership’s mission through impactful grants to schools, educational programs, and community development initiatives. Active in Irish America across the US, she has been honored by the Boston Irish Reporter, the Belfast Ambassador, and Irish Echo. Mary also engages with community initiatives in her adopted hometown of Boston. She supports Rian, the Irish Cultural Centre, the Boston College Global Leadership Institute, the Irish Pastoral Center, Irish Network Boston, and Boston Irish for Pride. She is an active member of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the New England Council, a founding member of the Boston Friends of the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and provides direction and support to the Durant Fellowship for Refugee Medicine at MGH Global Health as well as several local schools.

Maureen Bennett represents life sciences and health care clients conducting global clinical trials and research collaborations. For more than 20 years, Maureen has advised life sciences companies, CROs (contract research organizations), academic medical centers, health care systems, patient focused organizations, and digital health companies on the contractual, regulatory, and ethical issues associated with clinical research.

Maureen regularly advises clients on emerging issues in clinical research, such as strategies to meet clinical trial diversity and health equity objectives, the design and implementation of compliant decentralized clinical trials and telemedicine networks, the structuring of patient recruitment programs, and the development of complex outsourcing arrangements between sponsors, CROs, and site management organizations. She has assisted several clients regarding the conduct of global trials for therapeutics and vaccines to address COVID-19.

Maureen also negotiates clinical trial agreements, reviews informed consents, and assists with interactions with and inspections by regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

She also represents clients in the assessment and mitigation of regulatory risks and the negotiation of liability allocation arrangements in M&A, licensing, and other commercial transactions.

Maureen formerly served as co-chair of the Boston Bar Association’s Health Care Section. She was honorary co-chair for the 8th Annual Boston-Northwest Ireland Golden Bridges Conference 2022 and is a regular speaker at health industry conferences.

Maureen is a member of the national Board of Directors for Lambda Legal and is co-chair of the Jones Day LGBTQ+ affinity group. She is a member of the Boston College Women’s Softball Advisory Board.

As Chief People and Marketing Officer at Belfast City Airport, Michelle has over 25 years’ experience working in several executive leadership roles across various industries including telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, and aviation. Her transformational work with organisations has been recognised with many prestigious awards. On a personal level, Michelle has been awarded several business accolades including Institute of Directors (IOD) Young Director of the Year, IOD NI Director of the year for leadership in corporate responsibility as well as being crowned UK Director of the Year for Leadership. Michelle has also been presented with the prestigious Marks and Spencer’s Sieff Award for Leadership.

Michelle is passionate about community engagement and the role business can play in transforming communities and providing life changing opportunities for Young People.

Michelle is Chair of the award-winning charity Cinemagic, the leading film and television festival for young people in UK and Ireland and a proud Trustee of The Cancer Fund for Children, Ireland.

Michael J. Fitzpatrick was elected to the New York State Assembly, representing the 8th Assembly District, on November 5, 2002. Prior to his election to the Assembly, Mr. Fitzpatrick served as an elected member of the Smithtown Town Council for 15 years, from 1988 through 2002.

The 8th AD, within Suffolk County, is composed of the Town of Smithtown in its entirety and northern portions of the Town of Islip, notably the Islip portion of Hauppauge.

Assemblyman Fitzpatrick serves as the Ranking Minority Member on the Assembly Housing Committee and is a member of the Ways and Means, Higher Education and Labor Committees. Mr. Fitzpatrick is an active member of the New York State Chapter of the American-Irish Legislators Society and is currently serving as secretary.

Maintaining a presence in the private sector, whose vitality he strives to bolster as a legislator, Mr. Fitzpatrick is a Registered Associate with Morgan Stanley in the Port Jefferson branch office.

Active in the community, Assemblyman Fitzpatrick is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and past president of the board of trustees of the Cleary School for the Deaf in Nesconset, New York, where he remains an honorary trustee. He was a member of the Suffolk County Charter Revision Commission and the Human Services Committee of the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

Assemblyman Fitzpatrick is a 1975 graduate of Hauppauge High School and a 1979 graduate of St. Michael’s College in Vermont, from where he received his B.A. in Business Administration.

Mr. Fitzpatrick was born in Jamaica, Queens on April 15, 1957 and raised in Hauppauge, Long Island. He is married to the former Lorena Herrera of Chihuahua, Mexico, with whom he has raised two children, Corina and Michael. The couple resides in the hamlet of St. James in Smithtown.

Standing committee assignments for 2013-14: Housing, Ways and Means, Higher Education, and Labor.

Sean Moynihan is a 1992 cum laude graduate of Providence College and a 2001 cum laude graduate of Suffolk University Law School’s evening division program. He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in January 2002. He spent over a decade working in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, including positions as Counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee and Counsel to the House Majority Leader.

As Counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee, Sean analyzed legislative and budgetary proposals to make proper recommendations regarding state constitutional law, annual appropriation bills, inner workings of state agencies, and deciphering legal implications of funding proposals and amendments.  Public policy matters that Sean tackled on a daily basis included transportation, energy and the environment, life sciences/biotech, education, and the administration of justice in the Commonwealth.

In 2007 Sean founded The Moynihan Group, LLC, a Boston based boutique law firm specializing in government relations and public policy, corporate law, and transatlantic ventures.

Core services of the firm include legislative counsel, regulatory advocacy, procurement, business development, and business incorporation and compliance. The firm provides a strategic management style plan that is uniquely tailored to clients’ objectives. The firm has a history of representing clients in heavily regulated industries in Massachusetts.

The firm’s clients have included financial brokers, trade associations, universities, private security and public works related companies, non-profits, international service providers, international governmental bodies, international venture capital firms focused on high tech/innovation, and micro-mobility companies.

Sean is past President of Irish Network Boston (IN Boston) and is currently Vice President of Irish Network USA (IN USA). He also serves on the Irish International Immigrant Center’s (IIIC) Internship Advisory Panel working to identify employers for J-1 visa holders.

In the past, he served as “Connector” with the former Boston World Partnerships (BWP), a non-profit organization created by former Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and as a Trustee of the Irish Pastoral Centre in Boston.

Sean lives in Hingham, MA with his wife Lynn and their two children Maeve and Declan.

Suzanne Wylie was appointed Chief Executive of Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NI Chamber) in August 2023. Having worked across many sectors, and with businesses and politicians throughout Northern Ireland and further afield during her career, Suzanne is relishing her new role with NI Chamber and is keen that NI Chamber plays a significant part in boosting the whole economy.   

Previously she has held significant leadership roles in public services for over 15 years, most recently as the Chief Executive to the Jersey Government, and prior to that, as Chief Executive of Belfast City Council.

In Northern Ireland, Suzanne was instrumental in securing the £1bn Belfast City Region Deal, which is leveraging public and private finance to boost business capability in innovation and technology, as well as enhancing a range of tourism assets.  She also oversaw the delivery of a comprehensive regeneration strategy for Belfast, presenting NI as a place for investment in offices, hotels, visitor attractions, housing and jobs.  

In 2018, Suzanne set up a Growth Commission, chaired by Sir Michael Lyons, which set out a focused approach for economic growth and she led on the development of the Belfast-Dublin Economic Corridor for sectoral cluster growth.  She is a strong advocate for business innovation and for several years, chaired Innovation City Belfast to create an environment where entrepreneurship can thrive. 

She was awarded an OBE, received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast earlier this summer, where she also completed her MBA, and is a fellow of the Institute of Directors.         

Suzanne is married with three grown-up children, enjoys cycling, walking and travelling.