Wrexham director Kaleen Allyn: ‘We could have invested in Liverpool but here, we can get our hands dirty'

New York Times

01-05-2025

Wrexham executive director Kaleen Allyn knows that her family's minority shareholding in the upwardly mobile Welsh club represents a mere fraction of their overall portfolio of investments.
But it's definitely the most fun, with Allyn's 90-year-old grandfather having become so enamoured with Phil Parkinson after meeting Wrexham's promotion-winning manager on a recent visit that he now has a prized photo of the pair on the wall at home in New York.
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'We flew Grandpa Bill over because I wanted to kind of show him what it is all about,' says Allyn, whose family were brought on board by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney last autumn after previously looking at possibly investing in a host of Premier League clubs, including Liverpool.
'By the time it came to go home, he was almost kicking and screaming because he did not want to leave. He said: 'The community of Wrexham is the closest thing I've seen to what we grew up with and what we lost in upstate New York'.
'He went to the match and met Phil, who was very gracious. My grandfather had watched (documentary) Welcome to Wrexham. He was completely starstruck. He doesn't really give a damn who Ryan Reynolds or Rob McElhenney is. But Phil Parkinson? He wanted his picture with Phil and that picture is framed on the wall at his house. My dad (Eric) is the same with (The Turf pub landlord and Welcome to Wrexham breakout star) Wayne Jones.'
The Allyns have certainly thrown themselves into Wrexham life despite being based a little over 3,300 miles away in Skaneateles, a town in upstate New York where the family's medical device company, Welch Allyn, was based for more than 100 years before being sold for $2billion (£1.3bn) in 2015.
Kaleen, who oversees the family's private investment portfolio after previously working on Wall Street, is a member of the club's executive board, as well as the Wrexham Foundation and the Wrexham Academy.
She's also joined the team behind the Wrexham Gateway, a multi-million project to regenerate the area surrounding the main entrance to the city along the Mold Road corridor.
Dad Eric, a former chairman of the Welch Allyn board, is, if anything, even more of a familiar face in Wrexham. He's become a regular in The Turf when over from the States, joining the pub's bus trip to Blackpool for the Easter Monday victory that helped propel Parkinson's side towards a third straight promotion.
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He's become such an accepted member of the group that, when playing pool in a seaside pub before the Blackpool match, he was serenaded with the jocular chant, 'Where were you when we were s***?'.
Speaking in her first major interview since joining Wrexham's executive board in late January, Kaleen adds: 'This is the most fun job I've ever had. Granted, in terms of the portfolio I manage for my family, this investment is probably three to four per cent of that entire portfolio.
'But, because we are partners in this and rolling up our sleeves to do the work, I'd say it consumes at least 70 per cent of my time. And that is the best part. It's something we can work really hard on to help and not just passively sit there, thinking: 'Yeah, we have great people like Rob and Ryan running it, we can just relax'.
'No, we want to know how we can help and how we can learn.'
The Allyn family's path towards celebrating Wrexham's third consecutive promotion on the pitch last weekend with Reynolds and McElhenney started with what seemed, at the time, to be something of a leftfield recommendation.
Having worked for Rockefeller Capital Management in their alternative investment and wealth management divisions for five years, Kaleen Allyn was, by now, overseeing the family's private investment portfolio.
'I got a call from someone I'd worked with a long, long time,' she explains. 'They knew our family story for the last 20 years and said: 'Have you ever thought about investing in football?'. I was thinking: 'Buffalo Bills? I don't want to invest in football'. Even though my family love the Buffalo Bills.
'He said, 'No, no, no. I mean English football'. So, we started to look into this. We looked at some Premier League-level teams but you become a fraction-of-a-fraction owner. You are a small, small investor. You don't have a lot of power. You can't really engage.
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'I explained this wasn't really compelling to us. He replied: 'No, Kaleen, think lower down in the pyramid'. I'm thinking, 'Surely lower down means more risk'. I don't know if I can look my family in the face and say: 'Hey, this is going to be a great investment and be safe'.
'He just said: 'I can't give you their names at the moment but you do need to speak to these people I have in mind, please trust me' — and that's how I got introduced to Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.'
Selling Welch Allyn in 2015 hadn't been an easy decision for the family. Not after more than a century at the helm. One door closing, however, did at least open another in the form of potential investment deals, such as the one outlined initially by representatives of Maximum Effort and More Better, Reynolds and McElhenney's respective companies.
At this stage, Allyn had not watched the documentary charting the duo's ownership of Wrexham but she soon put that right by binge-watching the entire show and was immediately struck by the community aspect. A meeting was quickly arranged with the two co-owners.
'They started laying out their vision for Wrexham,' recalls Allyn. 'Not just the club but the community, and trying to find a way to make sure the community isn't left behind. If the club does well, the community does well.
'It was the most incredible first meeting I've had with partners. Rob and Ryan also said: 'Before we start talking about actually doing this, you have to go see Wrexham'.
'What they didn't know is my father (Eric) had already gone over incognito. He'd been in The Turf, met Wayne. I decided to go over as well. I went for the first time in September.
'I'm trying to wrap my head around Wrexham and how we're going to quantify the opportunity; thinking about the investment thesis, the club, the real estate, the businesses. But the thing I just couldn't prepare for was the added dimension of the fanbase.
'Oh my gosh. Of course, there's how the Wrexham people want to tell you their story if you're curious but the fanbase was just electric and powerful. There were fans who'd been with the club for decades, through all the highs and lows.
'You start talking to them and realise what the club means to the community. It changed everything to be there and seeing this for myself. I ended up texting Rob and Ryan with my dad and saying: 'Yes, we are going to sign off on this'. I knew this was an amazing opportunity that we could not pass up.'
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No details have been released as to the size of the Allyn's minority shareholding in Wrexham nor the amount they paid but by setting up Red Dragon Ventures LLC — a joint venture between Reynolds, McElhenney and the Allyns, that also now owns a stake in Wrexham Lager — to facilitate their investment, the New York-based family came on board at an opportune time.
Fresh from back-to-back promotions, Wrexham were chasing a third after an encouraging start to life back in League One. Off the pitch, a number of infrastructure projects also needed to be addressed, including the much-delayed new Kop stand and a new training ground.
Populous, the renowned firm of architects responsible for Wembley and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, being brought on board by chief executive Michael Williamson helped sort the design of not only the planned 5,500 capacity stand but also a master plan for the entire stadium, which, when completed, will take the capacity up to 28,000.
But the funding for a development that is receiving £25million of public money as part of a project to improve the main route into Wrexham still needed sourcing.
'My background is in finance, so I said: 'Right, we're going to form a finance committee to go and pursue this',' says Allyn. 'People like myself, Aidan Miller — who just did the Everton stadium (as finance director) and ran the process there — plus people from Maximum Effort and More Better are all coming together to say, 'Let's get our hands dirty'.'
A boost to the quest for financing came via the £15.02 million owed to Reynolds and McElhenney by the club in loans being repaid during the current financial year, effectively creating a 'clean balance sheet' to show to prospective lenders.
This, in turn, means Wrexham can borrow funds for the Kop and other projects at a lower rate than would have been the case had those previous liabilities to the owners remained.
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Allyn adds: 'So far, it's been amazing. A lot of times I hear big banks saying: 'We're not going to finance anything that's not Premier League level' but we've been going into these meetings with the banks and started to tell them the Wrexham story, and they have the same realisation as I had about the opportunity, and how it's like nothing else.'
Back home in Skaneateles, sport is important to the Allyn family. Ice hockey, in particular.
'It's a small town that gets brutally cold in the winter,' says Kaleen. 'We live right on this finger lake that would freeze over. My great-grandfather would go out and play pond hockey.
'Our entire family, all of us, played hockey at some point. Now, when we have family reunions, we all play hockey together. My grandfather will be on skates along with my six-year-old cousin. It's amazing to watch everyone come out on to the rink and it's very competitive.'
Also important is community, which is why the Allyn Family Foundation was set up in 1954 to help address poverty locally and improve lives.
Millions of dollars have since been distributed via grants to a variety of initiatives, while the foundation was also the driving force behind the $26.5million Salt City Market project in Syracuse, 30 minutes' drive from Skaneateles, which since opening in January 2021 has not only provided both subsidised housing and a food hall for local businesses, but also revived a rundown part of the city.
Now on board at Wrexham, the Allyns have a similar desire to help the community in North Wales. 'One of the things I love with the Wrexham Foundation is the philanthropic side, as in: how can the club give back to the community?' says Kaleen, whose mother Meg O'Connell is an executive director of the family Foundation.
'That's become a totally recharged set-up under (head of community) Jamie Edwards. He has rethought the entire system. He'll say: 'Yeah, sure, our players will go into the hospitals and meet with the kids, which is very important… but we can do so much more as well'.
'Syracuse is the same as Wrexham, a city left a little behind, so, it's about empowering the people in the community. They're so proud and there's ways to help them.'
This desire to make a lasting impact explains the family coming on board at North Wales' only EFL club. Thanks to the team's jet-heeled charge through the leagues, there's no doubt the club's off-field operation is having to play catch-up.
This full-on existence is exactly what Allyn envisaged when her family first got involved at the SToK Cae Ras, after passing up earlier opportunities to take a minority stake further up the football ladder.
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'Even when we were looking at other clubs,' she adds, 'we were, like :'We want to be true partners with whoever we work with'. Yes, Liverpool is an amazing club and when we were looking at that, we were, like: 'This could be a great opportunity' but this isn't what we want. We want to be true partners and get our hands dirty; be part of the story of what's happening. That's the biggest honour.
'Everyone is so excited to move fast with these back-to-back-to-back promotions but do it in a way that you're not just trying to get this to the highest point and then watch it fall back down.
'We want to have sustainable, long-term growth. It's been great Phil has been able to create a team that's gone back-to-back-to-back, and the management's job now is to make sure this is sustainable.'
One bonus of the family's determination to be in this for the long haul alongside Reynolds and McElhenney is plenty more visits to Wrexham and The Turf.
'Where we grew up,' adds Kaleen, 'it was like Wrexham in that everyone knew each other. My dad and grandfather knew everyone at the business, they knew their uncles and aunts, their kids. They would sit and talk with everyone, whether that was on the manufacturing floor or up in marketing.
'When they lost that, it was a big thing so, after bringing my dad and Grandpa Bill to The Turf, they immediately switched into that mode. They started learning about every single person in there.
'My dad's amazing. He's built his own community of people, remembering them all every time he goes in, and my Grandpa keeps FaceTiming him and asking how everyone is. It is the sweetest thing in the world.'