Tom Hardin previously spent much of his career as a financial analyst in the U.S. In 2008, as part of a cooperation agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Tom assisted the U.S. government in understanding how insider trading occurred in the financial services industry.

Known as “Tipper X,” Tom became one of the most prolific informants in securities fraud history, helping to build over 20 of the 80+ individual criminal cases in “Operation Perfect Hedge,” a Wall Street house cleaning campaign that morphed into the largest insider trading investigation of a generation. As the youngest professional implicated in the sting, Tom was tasked with wearing a covert body wire on over 40 occasions to help the FBI bring down some of its biggest targets in the industry.

In a reunion of sorts, Tom was invited by the FBI-NYC’s office to speak to their rookie agents in 2016 and is now a global keynote speaker, corporate trainer and board advisor on behavioral ethics, compliance and organizational conduct and culture risk. Through rigorous self-examination, Tom took responsibility for his actions as a young professional, used the experience to transform his life and is now on an on-going journey into human behavior and why we sometimes make the wrong decision.

Tom holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Tom’s riveting life story is the subject of his debut book, Wired on Wall Street, will be released in February 2026.