Printable Biography of Tom Richardson

Tom began his business career in 1982 as a member of the management consulting division of Arthur Andersen. He was promoted twice before leaving in 1988 to start his own information consulting firm, The Systems Consulting Group, Inc. (SCG). As president, Tom led SCG from a start up to over $30 million in revenues in just 7 years, twice making INC. Magazine’s list of the fastest growing companies in America. Profitable every year of its existence, SCG grew without the benefit of outside capital on an initial investment of $150 to incorporate. By 1995 SCG had grown organically to 200 consultants in offices in Miami, Chicago and San Juan. Largely due to the approach that Tom and his partners used in building and maintaining relationships SCG was able to attract and retain the best employees in the industry as well as blue chip clients, such a M&M Mars, Quaker Oats, Bell Atlantic, Ryder System, and Burger King. This quantifiable success, combined with SCG’s domination of the South Florida and Latin American markets and its very attractive services offering, made SCG a highly sought after acquisition target for many larger consulting firms and in 1995, Cambridge Technology Partners acquired SCG in a stock swap transaction valued at 30 million dollars.
Tom was named to the executive team of Cambridge and ran the worldwide Application Services Division until March of 1997, when he left Cambridge to again pursue entrepreneur interests. Since leaving Cambridge, Tom has been involved in a variety of enterprises, and today he is part owner of P&O Packaging (a plastics company), Firehouse Four (one of Miami’s leading restaurants), The Radisson Riverwalk Hotel (a large hotel in Jacksonville), Horizon Bank (a new community bank he helped found and where he serves in the board of directors) and Infinet (a new media design company). In August 1999, Tom co-founded Entente Investment Inc. whose mission was to invest in entities in the information systems consulting space. In 2001, Entente merged with three of it’s investments to form Adjoined Consulting Inc., a system integration and general consulting provider.

Tom’s number one priority after leaving Cambridge was to expand and "bottle" the key contributors to the success of SCG and every other venture he is involved in, his method for relationship management. The result of this effort was the development of the book "Business is a Contact Sport" where the principles of Relationship Asset Management have been "bottled" for the benefit of the business community.

In addition to his business interests, he is active in various South Florida charities, notably as co-founder of the Hook and Ladder Foundation, which advocates education as a positive alternative to addiction and delinquency.

Tom Earned his BBA (cum laude) in Business Management from the University of Miami in 1980 and completed is MBA (with honors) in 1982 at UM.

He was the commencement speaker for the School of Business Administration at the University of Miami in December 2000 and at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Arizona in August 2001.
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Speech Topics
RAM - Relationship Asset Management