Tony O'Reilly, Junior

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Anthony "Tony" O'Reilly, Junior (born 1966) is a Dublin-born businessman with Irish and Australian citizenship, the third son and sixth child of Irish media magnate Tony O'Reilly and Australian Susan Cameron. He is currently CEO of active Irish mineral exploration company Providence Resources and a director of the Ireland Funds, having formerly been CEO of Wedgwood.

Contents

[edit] Life

[edit] Early life

O'Reilly was born, the youngest of triplets, in 1966, in Dublin, and brought up in Ireland, at Castlemartin in Kildare, and Fox Chapel, Pittsburgh, USA. After a difficult time at Harrow School, he moved to London at 15, living in a bedsit flat for £25 a week, working at a supermarket and with a landscape gardener, then returning to the family, later studying economics and history at Brown University, Rhode Island.

[edit] Career

He started work at Morgan Grenfell but was let go after less than three weeks when his division was closed. After six months looking for a job, Tony O'Reilly Senior brought him on a business trip, on which he was speaking at the international convention of Coopers & Lybrand partners, after which O'Reilly Junior worked for that company for two and a half years.

O'Reilly later worked at mining company Arcon, part-owned by his father, and at Waterford Wedgwood, dominated by his father, where he was first deputy CEO and later CEO of famous ceramics brand Wedgwood. He moved from that post to take up his current role as CEO of Providence, which he had earlier helped to found, drilling in the Dunquin Prospect area, working with 80% stakeholder ExxonMobil. He remains a director of Arcon and of Lundin Mining.

In 1995, O'Reilly led a flotation of the company on the Alternative Investments Market (AIM)[1]

[edit] Personal life

O'Reilly became engaged to Robin Rafford, two years his senior, whom he met while she was an advertising planner with Peter Owens, in November 1992[2], and they married mid-1993. Mrs O'Reilly, a graduate of Cornell and Columbia (for an MBA) Universities, subsequently studied at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, qualifying as a doctor, and later specialising in oncology. She also became a major figure on the Dublin social scene, often seen with her sister-in-law Alison Doody and winning an award as "Dublin Party Person of the Year" in 2002[3]. She was involved in two court hearings over traffic incidents in 2002 and 2004, and according to the judge in the latter case, narrowly escaped jail[4]. The couple became estranged[5][6], and in mid-2007 the couple's Dublin home, where they had lived since 1993, was sold, Mrs O'Reilly saying she planned to move to the UK to work in the art industry[7].

O'Reilly has said that he now divides his time between Dublin and weekends in Malta, as his new partner, an interior decorator, is Maltese. He has also lived in London in recent times. His three children, Grey, Tony and Miles, live with his estranged wife.

[edit] Sources

[edit] References

  1. ^ The (Daily) Telegraph, London, 9 May 2006: "Market profile: Tony O'Reilly Junior"
  2. ^ New York, New York, USA: New York Times, Style Section, 8 November, 1992, retrieved at nytimes.com (via search) 13 April 2008
  3. ^ Dublin, Ireland: The Sunday Independent, 10 November 2002: "Party queen with a passion for fashion", Helen Bruce, retrieved from independent.ie 13 April 2008
  4. ^ Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Times, "Doctor gets second driving ban in a year", Thursday 4 April 2004, retrieved from http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2004/0401/ 13 April 2008
  5. ^ Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Times, "Doctor gets second driving ban in a year", Thursday 4 April 2004, retrieved from http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2004/0401/ 13 April 2008
  6. ^ Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Times, Property Section, Thursday 3 May 2007, "Robin's redbrick on Leeson Park for €6.25m"
  7. ^ Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Times, Property Section, Thursday 3 May 2007, " Robin's redbrick on Leeson Park for €6.25m"