Tom Gardner

Tom Gardner is the chief executive officer and co-chairman of The Motley Fool, a financial services company he co-founded in 1993 with his brother, David, and Erik Rydholm. What began as a traditional print newsletter has grown into an international multimedia network that offers financial and business solutions to millions of Fools worldwide.

Gardner is a firm believer in the practice of Conscious Capitalism and leads the company by way of its established “Golden Rule” principles designed to create simultaneous value for all of the company’s stakeholders. Gardner's leadership and commitment to creating a diverse culture of inclusion, belonging, and succeeding has resulted in employee engagement scores over 90%, the company twice being named as Glassdoor’s #1 Best Medium-Sized Company to Work For in America, and year-after-year inclusion as a top workplace in the Washington, DC area. Gardner also serves as the lead advisor on multiple investment products, including Motley Fool One – the company’s all-access investing advice service.

His motley, the personal core value each Fool brings to the organization, is: “Aspen Grove Root System.” An aspen grove boasts a massive root system that connects what look like numerous separate trees but is actually a single organism expressed across an area as large as 100 acres. Similarly, Fools operate and thrive in their own business units and teams but come together in pursuit of the company’s unifying purpose of making the world smarter, happier, and richer.

Gardner sits on the National Advisory Board of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and is a graduate of Brown University.