In college, Tom worked for the Southwestern Company of Nashville, Tennessee. Southwestern employs thousands of college students each summer to sell books door-to- door. Based on his success in sales (number one for three successive summers), Tom became a sales manager at Southwestern. Here he recruited thousands of students and trained them to sell books.
Tom then joined FISI*Madison Financial and successfully ran the sales organization. Tom grew sales from $2 million to over $500 million.
Tom left FISI*Madison to start Private Business, Inc. Under his leadership as CEO, Private Business grew into the country’s leading provider of accounts receivable programs for community banks. Tom served as CEO for six years and took the company public in May of 1999. Tom was the first employee and the only CEO until the company was sold.
He also cofounded Bank Director, All Points ATM Network, and IPayments.
In January 1999, Tom purchased Tecniflex/Bancsource, Inc. Tom formed a sister company, Imagic Corporation, that develops and supports check-imaging systems for community banks. As CEO, Tom expanded both companies from small regional providers to national sales and service organizations. Imagic grew quickly, merged with OSI, and went public. Under his leadership, Tecniflex/Bancsource went from 27 employees to almost 500 serving 4,000 banks in 49 states.
13 years ago Tom cofounded Ncontracts, now the leading provider of vendor compliance and risk management for financial institutions. Ncontracts serves over 4,000 financial institutions nationwide.
Tom has written two wildly popular books- “Boxcar Millionaire” and “Doing Business at the Table.”
More recently, Tom founded the Tom Black Center for Excellence. The Tom Black Center for Excellence, a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), offers customized training and coaching services to national clients of all sizes in a wide range of fields.
Education- Missouri State University
Bachelor of Arts, Rhetoric and Public Address
Community Service- Chairman of the Nashville Wine Auction raising over $20 million for cancer related causes
Chairman of the Library Foundation Book Campaign raising $5.4 million for books
Founders Club of the Nashville Symphony
T.J. Martel Co-Chairman of “Best Cellars” for 16 years
Numerous donations to Boy Scouts of America, Missouri State University, Vanderbilt University, Association of Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Counselors, Frankie Lemmon School and Developmental Center, Education Equal Opportunity Group, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Big Brothers Big Sisters, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Frist Center, Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee, St. Jude for Children’s Research, Direct Relief, and more.