Pilar O'Leary

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.[7]

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.[8] 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.

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.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]

O'Leary partnered with museums across the Smithsonian to support the development of Latino-themed exhibitions such as The Ancient Spirit of Colombian Gold (National Museum of Natural History);[13] Retratos: 2000 Years of Latin American Portraits (National Portrait Gallery); Mexico at the Smithsonian (International Gallery) which was attended by former First Lady Laura Bush and Legacy: Spain & The United States in the Age of Independence, 1763-1848 (National Portrait Gallery) which was attended by H.R.H. the Infanta Elena of Spain.[14] 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[15] 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.[16] 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.[17] O'Leary also co-produced the award-winning documentary film for Showtime Television (Smithsonian Networks): The Accordion Kings: The Story of Colombian Vallenato, featuring Grammy award-winning Latin recording artist Carlos Vives.[18]

In March 2007, Smithsonian Secretary Larry Small resigned.[19] Within a year, O'Leary and 18 other senior officials from the Smithsonian faced queries from the new Inspector Generaland resigned.[20] 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…[bringing] together strong leaders from academic, foundation, government and corporate sectors to support the work of the Center and develop[ing] partnerships with scores of cultural organizations in the United States and across the hemisphere.[21]

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.[22] 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.[23] 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.[24]

In 2009, O'Leary and Georgetown law school classmate Alexandra Migoya co-founded Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures,[25] 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 (ACTFL). 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,[26] CNN, Univision, Fox News, Telemundo and many other major media outlets.[27] 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.[28]

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.[29]

In 2014, O'Leary began advising the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), a nonprofit organization.[30] 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.[8]

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.[31] 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.