February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Delivering the biennial lecture of the Irish Small and Medium Enterpises (ISME) which represents small businesses, O’Brien told an invited audience that the influence of Irish Catholic clerical orders in education had been a huge asset to an Irishman doing business in Central America and the Pacific region.
He said that many of the government ministers he had met in countries where he was seeking to establish his cell phone business had been educated by Christian Brothers, including the prime minister of Samoa.
“It helped massively to be an Irish Catholic….it was a hell of a calling card for us,” he said at the organisation’s annual general meeting.
O’Brien won Ireland’s second mobile phone licence with his Esat group in 1995, which was listed before being sold to British Telecom in 2000, personally netting him around