Denis O’Brien

Denis O’Brien married Catherine Walsh in 1997. Walsh had previously headed the marketing arm of Independent Radio Sales. The couple has four children.

Denis O’Brien was born on 19 April, 1958 in County Cork, Ireland. He has one brother and two sisters. His father worked as a veterinary supplier.

He was interested in earning money from a young age. At the age of 14, he started working as a bell boy in the Central Hotel in Dublin. He also took up summer jobs during the school holidays and used to accompany his father on trips selling the equine drugs his father’s company manufactured. He honed his entrepreneurial skills through all these experiences.

After completing his high school he went to study politics, history and logic at University College Dublin and graduated in 1977. He won a scholarship from Boston College from where he completed his M.B.A in corporate finance in 1982.

After his graduation his first job was as an assistant manager of Trinity Bank, a small merchant bank in Dublin. He, however, had bigger dreams for himself and wrote to Dr. Tony Ryan, the founder of Shannon-based aircraft leasing group GPA, asking for a job.

Dr. Ryan was impressed by the young man’s confidence and appointed him as his PA. At that time GPA was the biggest owner of large commercial aircraft in the world and it was the first time O’Brien got exposed to the international world of business.

In 1989, he formed Communicorp, which launched its radio operations in Ireland the same year. In 1992, Communicorp started operations in the Czech Republic and later ventured into Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary and Ukraine as well.

In 1990, he founded Esat Telecom, a telecommunication company. Prior to this he had unsuccessfully attempted to bid for Ireland's communications satellite licence.

Over the next few years Esat telecom applied to the Department of Communications for a telecommunications licence several times and was finally granted a limited one in March 1993.

He is the founder and owner of Digicel, a mobile phone network provider headquartered at Kingston, Jamaica, which has about 13 million wireless users. The network operates across 31 markets which include Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and Vanuatu.