Thomas C. Melzer

Tom co-founded RiverVest in 2000. Currently, he is actively involved in firm management, investor relations and community engagement. When directly engaged in investing, he worked with portfolio company CEOs as an adviser on strategy, management and financing. Tom is a former director at Centerre Healthcare Corporation, which was acquired by Kindred Healthcare LLC in 2014. He is also a former board observer at MacroGenics, Inc., which went public in 2013, and CyDex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 2011.

Before RiverVest, Tom was one of a handful of individuals who had the distinction of directly influencing U.S. monetary policy. As President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, he directed its involvement in the formulation of monetary policy, the supervision of banks, and the provision of payments services to depository institutions. In addition, he served on the FOMC, the Federal Reserve System’s chief monetary policymaking body, and chaired the investment committee for the Federal Reserve pension and thrift plans.

Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, Tom was a managing director of Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc., where he was recognized as a trailblazer and troubleshooter in the areas of corporate finance, real estate finance and investment, strategic planning, and securities sales and trading. While director of the firm’s U.S. Government Securities department in the early 1980s, Tom turned around this money-losing division and grew it into a significant profit generator in ensuing years.

Outside of RiverVest, Tom holds board positions at Goldman Sachs Bank USA, chairing its Risk Committee, as well as the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Gateway Arch Park Foundation, the Nine Network of Public Media, and Parents as Teachers National Center. He also serves on the National Council for the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and the Advisory Board of the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research.

Tom earned an M.B.A. and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.