By Business & Finance 
One of Ireland’s most prominent movers in the city of London, Basil Geoghegan’s is also the co-chair of the Ireland Fund of Great Britain.
Irish-born Basil Geoghegan is one of the top investment bankers in the UK. He currently occupies the role of managing director of UK banking and broking at Citigroup in London.
With a reputation for dealmaking, Geoghegan has held managing director positions at both Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank before his current position at Citigroup.
Geoghegan left Deutsche Bank for a chief development officer role with telecoms software company Acision in July 2010, before landing his current position with the US bank in March 2011. Geoghegan left Deutsche after only a year at the firm having previously worked at Goldman Sachs since 1995. At the height of the financial crisis, he played a key role in advising the UK’s Treasury on options for Northern Rock.
During his time in Ireland, Geoghegan was also regarded exceptionally highly having played a key role in the initial public offerings of Aer Lingus and C&C.
He advised the Sir Anthony O’Reilly-led Valentia consortium’s buyout of eircom in 2001 and the Doyle family during their takeover of the Jurys Doyle Hotel Group. Geoghegan also advised Irish Life & Permanent and Irish Nationwide since it made an abortive attempt to sell itself in 2006.
Geoghegan is co-chair of The Ireland Fund of Great Britain, a position he took over from another Goldman Sachs heavyweight, Peter Sutherland. Geoghegan speaks passionately about the shared ethos and uniqueness of The Ireland Funds which is the largest global Irish philanthropic group.
He consistently reminds people of the support that is needed more then ever before for those that are in need of our help, in particular the beneficiaries of the Forgotten Irish campaign, the elderly and vulnerable Irish living in the UK.
During Geoghegan’s chairmanship of The Ireland Fund of Great Britain, the fund has made its ‘Forgotten Irish’ campaign the focus of its efforts.
The campaign aims to support many of the Irish emigrants who came to Britain in the second half of the twentieth century to find work.
In particular, the campaign focuses on those who emigrated to Britain between the 1950s and 1970s to escape the hardship, marginalisation and all too often, the abuse of institutional life.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Geoghegan describes why this group is especially vulnerable.
“Some were fleeing abuse at the hands of the church and State, and almost all came to Britain. We found a high percentage of mental illness, inability to access social welfare and just general loneliness among [some of] these increasingly aged ex-pats. I guess it was because they didn’t have family here and some of them had moved around a lot, working on the roads, for example, so had few friends.”
Last year, Geoghegan climbed Mount Everest in aid of the Forgotten Irish appeal and raised over £111,000 for the campaign. In a blog that accompanied the climb attempt, Geoghegan detailed the moment he reached Everest’s summit.
“I am not sure how elegant I looked, but I was up. From here a fairly easy snow walk of 20 minutes took me to the top of the world. The Forgotten Irish flag was raised on a cold Himalayan peak at 7.28am at 8848m on 19 May 2011.”
Geoghegan obtained a Batchelor of Law from Trinity College Dublin and a Masters of Law in Competition Law from the European University Institute in Tuscany.
