RICK REIDY

RICK REIDY is a trained economist and an early adopter of "impact investing," helping to organize and finance a number of innovative companies and non-profit groups.

After decades of broad experience, he is now a proponent and practitioner of "venture creation" -- designing, financing and growing companies under his own direct management and personal oversight in order to ensure maximum positive impact.

In the late 1990s, he founded a then-rare 100% green venture capital fund to build and support early stage, environmentally friendly companies staffed by skilled labor union workers.

Mr. Reidy was executive director and Latin American specialist for the International Intellectual Property Institute, a Washington DC economic development "think tank" that he helped to fund. IIPI promotes protection of intellectual property as a key tool for job creation and economic growth around the world.

He served as senior Washington lobbyist and advisor for New York City cultural organizations, including Guggenheim Museum, American Ballet Theatre, World Monuments Fund. He has appeared as a commentator on Los Angeles television & radio, and he continues to informally assist national and local political candidates.

In the 1990s, Mr. Reidy was president of the Health Policy and Research Foundation of California, a non-profit charity, founded in 1986, to promote government policy actions during the exploding public health crisis of HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Reidy was founder, in 1991, of a start-up venture that pioneered direct-to-consumer sales of recorded music. He served previously as chief financial officer for a boutique property developer in Los Angeles, arranging financings for construction of custom homes.

During the 1980s, Mr. Reidy lived in Washington DC, managing political programs and raising funds under two chairmen of the Democratic National Committee. He directed finance and political projects for campaigns for President and for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and he directly advised dozens of candidates at national and local levels. Previously, he worked at a Washington trade group for companies implementing Employee Stock Ownership Plans.

A graduate in economics of University of Notre Dame, Mr. Reidy also studied and worked in Mexico City, Boston and New York. He spent his school years in radio broadcasting as an on-air announcer, news writer & engineer. He grew up as an all-purpose assistant in his father's retail stores in western New York State.