Tom Swartwood – aka “Money Man”

If you think Jim Cramer is over the top…get a load of this guy!  Tom slings it with the best of them and still claims Jersey as his home even though he’s been in Iowa forever.

Mr. Swartwood is a Managing Director of Swartwood Hesse Inc., a New York-based investment banking firm that specializes in financing entrepreneurial businesses. He is also the founder of The Pointer Group LLC, a Des Moines-based small business advisory firm.  He is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Drake University.  He also teaches business law and other management and finance courses at local colleges.

Raised in New Jersey (and still a Jersey guy) he graduated from Dartmouth College; after college he worked in the coal mining industry in Kentucky before returning to New York to work with investment banker Ken Langone, a founding director of Home Depot and an advisor to Ross Perot.  He earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and practiced corporate law in New York before joining Swartwood, Hesse inc., an investment banking firm on Wall Street.  He came to Des Moines in 1994 in connection with the acquisition of R.G. Dickinson &Co., where he served as president.   He later earned an MBA from Drake University.

He has worked with dozens of innovative entrepreneurial companies throughout North America, Europe and China.  His clients have included an artisanal bakery, a plastic recycling business, a bio-pharmaceutical company developing a blood substitute, and a custom motorcycle builder.  He has served on numerous public and private company boards of directors.  He is the past Chairman of the National Investment Bankers Association and he was a founding member of the Public Library of Des Moines Foundation.

www.tomasswartwood.com
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twitter: @TSwarts
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