Pilar O'Leary
Pilar Frank O'Leary is an international business consultant, former lawyer, corporate executive and not-for-profit director. She is Founder and President of PFO Advisory Group, which primarily advises institutions working with Latin America and Spain on policy and business development matters. Previously, O'Leary worked as a corporate lawyer and business executive at major companies including Goldman, Sachs & Co, JP Morgan and Fannie Mae. She also was Director of the Smithsonian Latino Center from 2005–2008, serving as senior advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the Smithsonian on relations with U.S. Latino and Latin American communities.
O'Leary is the founder of Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures, a Spanish language learning program for children and is the producer of a number of Latin-oriented media. She executive-produced and wrote the lyrics for Ole & Play! The Songs of Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures, a children's Spanish music album. She also co-produced the Showtime television documentary film, The Accordion Kings: The Story of Colombian Vallenato Music in collaboration with Colombian music artist Carlos Vives for the network's Smithsonian Networks channel.
For her work in supporting the Latino community, O'Leary has been profiled in a number of media publications including Hispanic Business Magazine, Latina Magazine and Vanidades. She was featured on the cover of Washington Life Magazine as a winner of the magazine's 2006 "Substance & Style Awards." One of her fellow winners that year was then U.S. Senator Barack Obama. In 2018, for her volunteer service to the country of Colombia, O'Leary was awarded the Order of San Felipe Arcangel by the government.
Early life and education
Pilar Frank O'Leary was born in Virginia. Her father, Richard H. Frank, is CEO of Darby Overseas Investments, a private equity firm and a subsidiary of Franklin Templeton. O'Leary's mother, Irma Melo Frank, is a native of Bogota, Colombia and Senior Associate Dean for International Programs at Georgetown School of Medicine. O'Leary grew up in a bilingual household with two younger brothers in McLean, Virginia.O'Leary attended Georgetown University where she received both her undergraduate degree and law degree. O'Leary is fluent in English, Spanish and French and proficient in Portuguese and Italian.
Professional career
Early career
O'Leary moved to Paris to work as a paralegal for White & Case, an American law firm. Upon returning to the United States, she worked for Goldman Sachs as a Latin American equities analyst before going to law school at Georgetown. O'Leary was also selected to participate in the competitive United Nations summer internship program in the Office of the General Counsel of the UN in New York.O'Leary went to work as a lawyer for JP Morgan & Co., initially out of their Buenos Aires office. After two years, O'Leary was transferred to JP Morgan's New York office, continuing to work on global derivatives legal matters. In 2000, O'Leary moved back to the Washington, D.C. area and went to work for Fannie Mae, initially as Associate General Counsel in the company's legal department before being recruited to serve as Director of Operating Initiatives and Special Assistant to the company's then Chief Operating Officer, Daniel Mudd.
Smithsonian Latino Center
In 2005, O'Leary was appointed Director of the Smithsonian Latino Center as a non-government employee, serving as senior advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the Smithsonian on relations with U.S. Latino and Latin American communities. O'Leary was tasked with increasing the domestic and international public recognition, programming and fundraising for the Smithsonian Latino Center. She established a new advisory board composed of high-level representatives from the corporate, academic and government sectors and raised millions of dollars to support the center's programs and operations. She also significantly augmented the Smithsonian Latino Center's relevance and public visibility with numerous Latino government, cultural and corporate organizations, including embassies and museums across the U.S., Latin America and Spain, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and Carlos Slim's foundation, among numerous others. To raise funds and further awareness, O'Leary launched the Smithsonian Latino Center's first "Legacy Awards" benefit to honor Latinos and Latin Americans who have made significant contributions to U.S. culture. She also strengthened the management and impact of the Latino Initiatives Pool, an annual federal allocation to support Smithsonian Latino programming. To commemorate 10 years of government-funded projects, O'Leary led the publication of a commemorative book entitled, Hispanic Heritage at the Smithsonian: A Decade of the Latino Initiatives Pool.O'Leary partnered with museums across the Smithsonian to support the development of Latino-themed exhibitions such as The Ancient Spirit of Colombian Gold ; Retratos: 2000 Years of Latin American Portraits ; Mexico at the Smithsonian which was attended by former First Lady Laura Bush and Legacy: Spain & The United States in the Age of Independence, 1763-1848 which was attended by H.R.H. the Infanta Elena of Spain. O'Leary's staff worked with museum colleagues to create bilingual educational guides for such exhibitions and conducted considerable public outreach to increase Latino audience participation. Under O'Leary's direction, the Smithsonian Latino Center also supported a Latin Grammy award-winning series of Latin American folk music recordings and organized a year-long series of Mexican-themed public programming which included a contemporary Mexican film festival headlined by actor Diego Luna and screenings of The Forgotten Eagles, an acclaimed documentary film narrated by Edward James Olmos about Mexican–American War veterans.
O'Leary established the Smithsonian Latino Center's Young Ambassadors Program, a national leadership initiative for Latino high school seniors which was ultimately recognized as a "Bright Spot in Hispanic Education" by the White House in 2015. She also supported and led the development of an interactive educational website as well as the first stages of a Latino Virtual Museum to highlight the Smithsonian's Latino and Latin American collections. O'Leary also co-produced the award-winning documentary film for Showtime Television : The Accordion Kings: The Story of Colombian Vallenato, featuring Grammy award-winning Latin recording artist Carlos Vives.
In March 2007, Smithsonian Secretary Larry Small resigned. Within a year, O'Leary and 18 other senior officials from the Smithsonian faced queries from the new Inspector Generaland resigned. After O'Leary announced her departure, her supervisor, Richard Kurin, the Undersecretary and Provost of the Smithsonian and a long-standing leader at the institution, sent an email to all staff at the institution praising O'Leary's tenure, stating,
Pilar has done outstanding work in enhancing the public outreach and visibility of the Smithsonian Latino Center… together strong leaders from academic, foundation, government and corporate sectors to support the work of the Center and develop partnerships with scores of cultural organizations in the United States and across the hemisphere.
Latino outreach activities
O'Leary re-engaged with Latino outreach issues. She collaborated with Grammy Award-winning music producer Andres Levin and his not-for-profit Music Has No Enemies along with recording artist will.i.am to produce a Latin video entitled "Podemos con Obama" featuring Lin Manuel Miranda, Jessica Alba, George Lopez, Paulina Rubio, Alejandro Sanz, Yerba Buena and others in support of Obama's presidential campaign and U.S. immigration reform. O'Leary also served as Talent Director of the Latino Inaugural Ball for President Barack Obama's 2008 inauguration which featured appearances and performances by Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Yerba Buena and others, many of whom O'Leary personally recruited. O'Leary became involved with the Spanish Catholic Center of the Catholic Charities Foundation which supports local Latino immigrants and co-founded The Washington Ballet Latino Dance Fund, a program that provides scholarships to talented young dancers from Latin America as well as funding free dance programs at Washington DC area public schools in low-income minority neighborhoods.Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures
In 2009, O'Leary and Georgetown law school classmate Alexandra Migoya co-founded Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures, a Spanish immersion program for children in the Washington, D.C. and Miami metropolitan areas. O'Leary and Migoya co-developed an original Spanish Culture-Centric language curriculum based on the standards of the Instituto Cervantes of Spain and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. O'Leary also wrote the lyrics and executive-produced the highly acclaimed children's music album, Ole & Play! The Songs of Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures which is sold on iTunes and Amazon. O'Leary achieved positive coverage of the program in many media outlets including The Washington Post, CNN, Univision, Fox News, Telemundo and many other major media outlets. O'Leary led collaborations for Isabella & Ferdinand with the Embassies of Spain and Latin American countries as well as cultural organizations such as GALA Hispanic Theater, The National Gallery of Art, The Washington Ballet, the Kennedy Center, The Coral Gables Museum, the Mexican Cultural Institute, the Gary Nader Gallery, the Lowe Museum of Art and others.PFO Advisory Group
In 2013, O'Leary began consulting for Facebook on its government engagement strategy in Colombia and across the Latin American region. She also advised Facebook executives on a number of policy issues related to those markets and facilitated meetings with top government officials from Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Brazil.In 2014, O'Leary began advising the International Women's Media Foundation, a nonprofit organization. O'Leary was tasked with leading the research and development of a proposal to expand IWMF's work into 5 countries in Latin America and along the U.S. Mexico Border. O'Leary also led the development of several important partnerships for the organization in the Americas including many Latin American embassies, Facebook, Instagram, Mashable, 21st Century Fox, Univision, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, Revista Semana and others.
In 2016 O'Leary formally created the PFO Advisory Group and began consulting full-time, advising entities working with Latin America. In this capacity, O'Leary serves as an advisor to the Embassy of Colombia and helped organize the 2016 official visit of President Juan Manuel Santos to the White House and counseled the Embassy on the establishment of the US-Colombia Business Council and other strategic partnerships. O’Leary’s firm PFO Advisory Group has also provided partnership strategy consulting to entities such as Coca-Cola, National Geographic Society, Edens, Enterprise Holdings, Chavon School of Design and other leading corporate and nonprofit organizations.
Boards and charities
O'Leary is involved in a number of charitable organizations supporting the arts, education and Latino causes domestically and internationally. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Imagination Stage, and is a member of the Meridian International Center Global Leadership Council and Georgetown Entertainment and Media Alliance, among others. She previously served on the Board of Directors of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation and Transformer as well as the Women's Committee of the Washington Ballet.Media
O'Leary has been a speaker on Latino political and cultural issues and has been recognized in numerous news publications for her work. Recognitions include "2006 Influentials: Ten to Watch" ; "15 Phenomenal Latinas of 2006" ; "2006 Triunfadores";"Han Triunfado" and the 2006 "Substance & Style" Awardee, for which one of her fellow winners was then U.S. Senator Barack Obama. O'Leary has spoken at The White House, the Girls Scouts of America, the U.S. State Department and other major organizations. She was the 2008 commencement speaker for the New World School of the Arts in Miami.Credits:
| Production | Credit |
| Ole & Play! The Songs of Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures | Executive Producer |
| The Accordion Kings: The Story of Colombian Vallenato | Co-producer and Senior Consultant |
| The Price of Silence | Co-producer and Talent Coordinator in collaboration with Music Has No Enemies and LinkTV |
| Podemos Con Obama | Co-producer in collaboration with Music Has No Enemies |
Source: