Thomas E. Darden, Jr. is the founder of Reliant Equity Investors, a management-centric private equity investment firm with over $120 million under management that invests in later-stage, middle market companies. Prior to co-founding Reliant, Thomas was a Managing Director at Wind Point Partners, a middle-market buyout firm and a Vice President at Advent International, a global private equity firm. Prior to his career in private equity, Thomas held various management and engineering positions at UltraCision Inc., GTech Corp., Surgilase (two-time member of Inc. Magazine's "List of 500 Fastest Growing Companies"), Borg Warner Corp., and the Detroit Diesel Allison Division of the General Motors Corp.

Thomas serves on the boards of directors of Saginaw Holdings, Inc., BlueSky Brands, Metal Spinners, Inc, Rocore Holdings and Specialty Tools, Inc. He also serves on the boards of The Chicago Public Education Fund and National-Louis University.

Thomas received a B.S. degree in engineering from the General Motors Institute. He earned an MBA, cum laude, from Babson College and was awarded a Kauffman Fellowship graduating with the program's inaugural class.