About

Tom Grady is a financial industry professional with broad leadership skills developed through a career including law, finance, management, government and politics. He is a graduate of Florida State University (B.S., Business Administration, summa cum laude, 1979) and Duke University School of Law (with distinction, 1982).

As a lawyer and mediator, Tom’s practice focuses on the resolution of disputes within, and the creation of solutions for, financial industry participants and investors. Issues include retail securities and cryptocurrency fraud, risk analysis and management, disclosure, accountability and transparency obligations, investment risk and return analysis, investment policy (public and private sector), and insurance coverage and claims.  

His legal expertise has been complemented by continuous, real-world participation in the financial sector. For example, while still in college, Tom served as an agent for a national mutual insurance company. He later formed, owned and managed a general securities broker/dealer with federal and multi-state general securities principal and agent licenses (Series 7, 24 and 63). Since 2007, Tom has managed an investment portfolio of securities issued by commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, private equity firms, investment advisors, broker/dealers and other financial institutions, drawing on expertise gathered from prior service on the board of directors of a de novo national bank and as chief executive and regulator in the financial community.

Tom demonstrates civic leadership and maintains strong relationships with elected and opinion leaders throughout Florida. He has served on gubernatorial and attorney general transition teams and advised statewide officials on financial issues including education, securities regulation, catastrophic risk transfer and public pension reform.

In 2008, Tom was elected without opposition to state office, serving coastal Collier County (District 76) in the Florida House of Representatives. He successfully sponsored legislation sought by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation in the areas of securities regulation, international banking and finance and, as sought by the Attorney General, consumer finance. Tom successfully sponsored “Florida’s Equal Opportunity in Education Act,” providing access to charter schools. He also sponsored legislation to reform the Florida Retirement System and, separately (with support of the Florida Banker’s Association), to restore health to Florida’s housing market.

Representative Grady’s committee service included appointments by the Speaker of the House as Vice Chairman of the Insurance, Business & Financial Affairs Policy Committee and as a member of the Finance and Tax Council, the Civil Justice & Courts Policy Committee, the Economic Development Policy Committee and the PreK-12 Appropriations Committee. As an insurance committee chair, he presided over key insurance issues including the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens).

Tom was appointed by the Financial Services Commission (Governor Scott, General Bondi, Chief Financial Officer Atwater and Commissioner Putnam) in 2011 to serve as the Commissioner of the Office of Financial Regulation (OFR). The OFR and the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) are sister agencies housed within the Department of Financial Services that together regulate and support Florida’s financial industry. From Tallahassee and around the state, Commissioner Grady led an agency responsible for the regulation and support of banks, credit unions, investment advisors, broker/dealers, mortgage bankers, money services businesses and other financial institutions.

In 2012, Governor Scott requested that Grady transition to become the Interim President and CEO of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. At its inception, Citizens was designed as Florida’s insurer of last resort. By this time, however, it had become the insurer of first resort due to price controls that forced private corporations to exit the market. As a result, Florida’s financial exposure exploded. In 2012, national media described Citizens as “Florida’s largest financial liability” and “one of the nation’s most troubled residual market insurers.”

As Citizens’ Interim President, Tom quickly sought input (internally and externally) and developed options for the Financial Service’s Commissioner’s and the Board’s consideration and, importantly, took action to reverse Citizens’ growth trajectory and return it to the insurer of last resort. Florida’s taxpayers benefited as Florida maintained its financial health and AAA credit rating.