TOM SEEMAN
Author of ANIMALS I WANT TO SEE: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Projects and Defying the Odds
“A terrific and moving memoir about dreaming big and making great things happen.” —President Bill Clinton
Tom Seeman is a businessperson who lives in Massachusetts with his wife, four children, three dogs, and a cat. After growing up in the projects of Toledo, Ohio, in a family of fourteen on welfare and food stamps, he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in 1981, and from Harvard Law School in 1985. Tom began his career doing M&A and securities work for Davis Polk & Wardwell and then moved on to Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers before joining McKinsey & Company.
In 1997, Tom and his brother started ClearStaff, Inc., a successful staffing company that they still own today. In 2000, Tom and former McKinsey colleagues started Venturepark GmbH in Berlin, Germany, which they later sold to a large German company. In 2003, Tom bought Etonic from Spalding Sports Worldwide and became its CEO. After expanding the company, he successfully sold it to Lotto Sport Italia. In 2006 Tom and a partner purchased Charm Medical, a medical distributor in financial trouble. They turned the company around and successfully sold the company in 2018. In 2012, Tom bought Cutter Associates, a research and consulting firm, and assumed the role of CEO. After building the company for three years, he sold it to Nomura Research Institute, a large public company in Japan.
Tom currently serves on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and on the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has served as a mentor to a young man for the last twenty years and has funded a scholarship that asks community leaders and teachers to identify disadvantaged students who would not normally apply to St. Francis de Sales High School in Toledo—the college preparatory school that generously found him in his disadvantaged neighborhood and gave him a scholarship, helping him fulfill his dream of attending a top college.
Speech topics
Animals I Want to See
Based on his luminous coming-of-age memoir that shimmers with countless marvels, Animals I Want To See tracks, Tom Seeman’s unpacks his journey from a child janitor with big ambitions to a teenage petty criminal to a student at Yale and Harvard. At once a meditation on finding wonder in unlikely places, an ode to a heroic mother who makes the seemingly impossible possible, and an exploration of what it means to create our own identities, this is a heartwarming, thought-provoking, ultimately uplifting talk.
Books
Animals I Want To See: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Projects and Defying the Odds
A lyrical coming-of-age story set in the projects of Toledo, Ohio, Animals I Want To See explores themes of identity, ambition, religion, and friendship—often across racial and social lines—as it spotlights a family of fourteen and tracks a boy’s journey from a child janitor with big dreams to a teenage petty criminal to a student at Yale and Harvard.