Podcast Ep 210: The US country manager for Bank of Ireland Tony Dunne and his colleague Tania Sheikh talk about how the Bank’s NYC Hub has become a vital port of call for Irish businesses coming to America.
There’s an anecdote doing the rounds that if you’re Irish and you want to make business connections in New York, just turn up at some of the many events happening each month at the Bank of Ireland NYC Hub at 2 Grand Central Tower in Manhattan. Or if you’re a business customer of the Bank, use the co-working space or meeting rooms.
The US country manager for Bank of Ireland Tony Dunne chuckles in recognition at this anecdote. The good news, he says, is Bank of Ireland has extended the lease for this vital centre of Irish-American business activity until 2033.
“For Bank of Ireland we really feel it puts us at the heart of the Irish-American community over here. It’s our way of also giving back to customers with this value added services”
The NYC Hub is available to Bank of Ireland customers looking to expand into the United States, with more than 30 businesses regularly using it currently.
Bank of Ireland has been in New York since 1976 and also has teams located in Chicago, LA and Stamford supporting economic ties between Ireland and the United States. The Bank’s FDI team has supported over 600 international companies, many of them US-based, to set up in the Irish market.
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere
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“There are more than 700 Irish companies operating in all 50 States in the US, providing 100,000 jobs to North Americans”
Located at 2 Grand Central Tower in Manhattan, NYC Hub is a flexible workspace with seven offices, three meeting rooms, a conference room, 20 hot desks and event space accommodating up to 120 people. The Hub hosted 4,000 people and 113 events in 2023, double the volume of the previous year.
According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, Ireland’s FDI into the US stands at $235.7bn. Today, over 700 Irish companies operate across all 50 states, employing 110,000 in the US.
Exports to North America from Ireland reached a record €4.8bn in 2023 and this week Enterprise Minister Peter Burke, TD, is leading an Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland investment mission to the United States. Exports from Ireland to the United States increased by almost 60% in the past five years. North America now accounts for 19% of all exports by Enterprise Ireland backed companies.
“Bank of Ireland will soon be coming up to its 50th anniversary in the United States,” Dunne says happily. “We started off with a branch on Fifth Avenue focused on providing retail services for Irish-Americans. I would highly recommend checking out an ad for that branch that was broadcast in the 1970s.
“Today Bank of Ireland [in America] is focused on corporate customers operating in the US, real estate, FDI and treasury services. The main focus is what we call Leveraged Acquisition Finance where we partner with private equity firms operating in the mid-market space here in the US. It is quite a niche business and offers diversification opportunities in the US.”
The genesis for turning the Bank’s New York office in to a location for Irish businesses, especially start-ups coming to America, was an abundance of available space. “We moved to these new premises and we actually had excessive space and we were trying to figure out how best to utilise that space. In 2018 we began a competition with our investment partners Delta Partners and Kernel where we picked several companies from 100 start-ups and they would be able to come over here and get free space for a year.”
The idea has been a notable success with numerous successful Irish scaling businesses Deposify, Axonista, Glofox, Trustap, Alexander Mason, FundRecs and CitySwift making astute use of the space as part of their growth journey.
Supporting Irish businesses and offering a gateway business location entering the United States is a critical service that the Bank of Ireland provides, says Dunne.
“We talk nonstop about the impact that US companies are having in Ireland and how that has been driving the economic resurgence. But it’s really a two-way relationship. There are more than 700 Irish companies operating in all 50 States in the US, providing 100,000 jobs to North Americans. They are involved in every sector of the economy whether that’s education, construction, energy, the environment, medical devices and software.
“I really feel Ireland punches above its weight here. We are the ninth largest source of FDI into the US. So a huge shout-out has to go to Enterprise Ireland and the great work that they do to support Irish companies coming across.
“But it’s like Frank Sinatra said, if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. At the same time it’s a very expensive market to get into. And while there are a huge amount of opportunities, it’s also a very hard market to crack. You can’t just come over and dip your toe into it. You have to be very committed.”
Location, location, location
The onset of Covid offered an opportunity to reset and refocus and the Bank of Ireland’s New York office was relaunched in 2022 as NYC Hub.
“Over the past 12 months we’ve seen a 120% increase in usage of the space for events and the number of attendees has increased from 1,800 to more than 4,000 people which is amazing”
“We wanted to continue to support Irish start-up companies but also focus on supporting our Business Banking customers who can use the space for meetings and to work while they’re here in New York, rather than trying to meet customers or suppliers in a Starbucks or a hotel lobby. We want them to be able to use the NYC Hub as a sort of home away from home. And we believe that is a truly value-added service that we can provide.
“And then we wanted to do more with the NYC Hub as an event space and bring it to the next level.”
Dunne’s colleague Tania Sheikh, NYC Hub manager, said that the NYC Hub has become an integral space for businesses attempting to get started in the US market.
“Our customers are at the heart of this. We have a variety of more than 30 start-ups and scale-ups as well as established customers who use the NYC Hub throughout the year.
“The office usage has actually doubled versus this time last year. And I really think that’s down to how we’ve been promoting awareness and spreading the word to customers that we’re here. We set up a LinkedIn page this time last year which is a great way for businesses to contact us directly. We’ve actively engaged with colleagues to make customers aware of the benefits they receive from Bank of Ireland for their business needs.
“We really wanted to create a space that encourages networking and facilitates information-sharing among these various businesses using the NYC Hub. We really think it’s an invaluable asset if you think of all the extensive support that is required for breaking into the US market.”
Hosting events
Sheikh added that the NYC Hub is an important fixture on the calendar of business events for the Irish community in New York.
“Over the past 12 months we’ve seen a 120% increase in usage of the space for events and the number of attendees has increased from 1,800 to more than 4,000 people which is amazing. This includes customers across the Irish-American community.
“We have more than 30 organisations that we host regularly including universities like UCD, Queen’s University, UCG and Young Enterprise NI and we host a lot of women-led initiatives such as the Women Foundation, 100 Women in Finance and Women in Tech. There is also Digital Irish, which I’m currently on the board of, and many events and a lot of supports for our start-ups and entrepreneurs. We host non-profits such as Barretstown US, Irish Network Partnership and European American Chamber of Commerce to name a few.
“Within the last 12 months we’ve hosted upwards of 130 events, which is an increase of 80% year-on-year. It’s a wonderful space for networking.”
Sheikh added: “We find if you make it easy for people to use, it’s used more often. The fact that it’s a free space in the middle of Manhattan right beside Grand Central, is not a bad thing either.”
Dunne gave the example of one customer, Belfast-based tech firm Datactics, which makes use of the space when it is in New York at least twice a year and will host events for 30 or 40 of its customers and vendors. “So being able to have that space that customers can use is very valuable.”
He concluded: “For Bank of Ireland we really feel it puts us at the heart of the Irish-American community over here. It’s our way of also giving back to customers with this value added services.”
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