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Mr. Thomas has almost 25 years of investment experience in the technology sector. His career spans 14 years on Wall Street, where he became one of its first software and IT services analysts in the early 1980s. He has managed a $25 million hedge fund, acted as CEO of a start-up software company, and has run four investment funds. Mr. Thomas' unique background as an analyst, advisor and entrepreneur in both the public and private markets offer uncommon insight into the investment process.
From 2003 until joining Seneca, Mr. Thomas served as a Member of Endurance Ventures, LLC. Endurance is the manager of two traditional venture capital funds with total assets of over $60 million, and two sole-purpose investment funds totaling almost $5 million. Mr. Thomas' duties at Endurance Ventures included evaluating, researching, and assessing market opportunities for existing portfolio companies. In addition, he assisted with acquisitions, divestitures and other strategic initiatives, including advising National Water & Power Services Corp, a portfolio company, in the sale of its software division to Accenture, and closing a $30 million outsourcing contract between Accenture and the selling company.
Mr. Thomas began his Wall Street career at Hambrecht & Quist in 1983 as an Associate Analyst covering the software and IT services industries. Mr. Thomas was involved is a variety of IPOs including Informix, SHL Systemhouse, and Paychex, among others. His coverage universe included Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, EDS, Computer Sciences, Ashton-Tate, Lotus, CA, Cognos, Business Objects, Shared Medical Systems, HBO & Company, among many others. He was also the first Wall Street technology analyst to publish a software and services industry index that covered the price movements of the component stocks as well as their earnings movements. Mr. Thomas was also a member of the H&Q research team that published Wall Street's first Hospital Information Systems industry investment report. Following Hambrecht & Quist, Mr. Thomas worked as an analyst at Prudential Securities and First Albany-META Technology Research.
Prior to joining Hambrecht & Quist in 1983, Mr. Thomas was an intern in the equity research department of Prudential Bache Securities. While there he spear-headed the conversion of the entire analytical department from pencil and paper ledgers to the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet technology.
In 1993, in between his buy-side roles on Wall Street, Mr. Thomas joined the sell-side at O'Connor and Associates in Chicago, then a division of Swiss Bank Corp. Mr. Thomas managed a hedge fund consisting of the firm's own capital, focusing on investments in the technology arena. He also directed the firm's equity options trading team (then the world's largest) with the mandate of successfully marrying the volatility inherent in fundamental event-driven research information with the Black-Scholes Options Pricing Model to enhance capital returns.
Mr. Thomas' career has also included raising the seed funding for a start-up software company in 1998 and serving as its CEO. He was also hired personally by Larry Ellison and Jeff Walker (CFO) to work at Oracle to help launch the Company's first applications software solutions in 1990 and 1991.
Mr. Thomas is an avid golfer and scuba diver. He attended Brown University and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. Mr. Thomas lives with his wife and daughter in Ann Arbor, Michigan. | 