Who is Jon O’Brien?

O’Brien Global Strategies was established in 2020. We (Jon and a team of professional associates) wanted to do something different. We are not about giving the usual. We strive to give and do better-bringing together the deep experience of multi-faceted professionals who make the change.

Jon O’Brien was born in working-class Drimnagh, on the southside of Dublin City. He was drawn by a social justice hunger to push for social and political change in ultra-conservative Catholic Ireland where books, films, homosexuality, and contraceptives were banned. At 16 he decided to become socially and politically active in the struggle to bring about change and freedom. 

He joined social advocacy groups and quickly made headlines when he established a sex advice telephone hotline and a youth-run contraceptive clinic. He was the author of sex advice columns in newspapers and magazines that REM's singer Micheal Stipe called "filthy" due to their graphic content and said that they would be banned in the United States. O’Brien was the first person to demonstrate the correct use of a condom on Irish television. 

O’Brien’s continued frustration by the lack of political will and guts to tackle the escalating rate of HIV/ AIDS led him to convince Virgin's Richard Branson that he could legally sell condoms in the Virgin Mega record store on Dublin's Aston Quay. The subsequent court case made headlines around the world as O’Brien tried to convince the Irish courts that it was prophylactics (to prevent disease) he was selling and not contraceptives (to prevent pregnancy). The judge, outraged with the boldness of the law reformers, gave a very guilty verdict and imposed crippling fines on the campaigners. The last-minute intervention of the rock band U2 in support of the law reform campaigners case eventually led to the fall of Irish law restricting the sale of condoms. 

O’Brien went on to establish reproductive health organizations in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and then onto America. In the United States, as a leader in the reproductive health movement, he gave testimony to the US Congress and was a frequent performer and writer appearing on radio, television, print media. As a provocative conference speaker, he campaigned in favor of sexual rights and freedom around the world. A frequent contributor to the BBC, Fox News, CNN, has also appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Guardian and newspapers, magazines and television programs around the world.

O’Brien went on to become a strategist and trainer in successful campaigns to liberalize contraception and abortion laws in the Philippines, Chile, Argentina and the Republic of Ireland, as well to establish groundbreaking training programs and campaigns in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. O’Brien has created and led multiple media campaigns, most notably the “Condoms4life” campaign, which garnered press coverage on four continents and was banned by Spanish authorities before the visit of Pope Benedict.

O’Brien edited Conscience magazine for over 12 years, directed and appeared in numerous documentaries and movies advocating for sexual and reproductive freedom. He has spoken in the US Congress, Argentinian and EU parliaments, the House of Lords and gave testimony to the Irish government while campaigning for abortion law reform. He was honored as a “key to choice” by Planned Parenthood of San Francisco, a groundbreaker by the California Law Center and honored by the International Parliamentarians for his contribution to reproductive choice.

A trailblazer for progressive causes around the world, O’Brien is a champion for freedom of speech and tolerance. He rails against censorship and blind orthodoxy on the left and the right and advocates for enlightenment values and the global battle of ideas.