Mr. Harding is the Founder and Chairman of THE HARDING GROUP and has over 30 years of experience in the private equity industry.  He is a pioneer in the private equity industry with significant experience since 1980.  Prior to founding THE HARDING GROUP, Mr. Harding helped start and was Chief Operating Officer of the Leveraged Buyout (LBO) business of General Electric Capital Corporation (GECC) where he pioneered direct investments in companies.  Prior to these LBO responsibilities, he ran the Strategic Planning and Business Development Operation for GECC, reporting to the President and Chief Executive Officer.  While in this position, he started two businesses de novo for GECC and closed several major strategic acquisitions.

Before joining GECC, Mr. Harding was Corporate Vice President of PaineWebber specializing in corporate development and mergers and acquisitions.  Prior to this, he started and ran an importing business for United Fruit Company in Latin America and was responsible for turning around a large agribusiness operation in the United States.  Earlier, he was with a predecessor of J.P. Morgan Chase as an Assistant Vice President in Corporate Lending.

Mr. Harding received his MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he served on the Board of Overseers and is currently an honorary Board member.  Previously, he was Chairman of the Graduate Executive Board of the MBA program, is past Chairman of the Wharton Fund, and is also a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Wharton Alumni Association for his service to The Wharton School.  In addition, Mr. Harding currently serves on the Executive Board of Trustees of the Greenwich Council of the Boy Scouts of America where he received a national distinguished service award for service to youth.  He is also a former Trustee of the Eagle Hill School,  and is currently a member of the World Presidents' Organization.  He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan with a BA in Economics.  He lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with his wife, son and daughter.