This article was originally written for the sixth issue in the Advent 2025 semester of The Sewanee Purple and has been reproduced digitally.
Meran Paul
Features Editor
On November 18, the Babson Center, along with the Department of Economics and Finance, and the Department of Philosophy, invited Kathryn Thompson (C ’96) to serve as the Humphreys Entrepreneur in Residence Speaker. She is the founding partner and CEO of Thompson Research Group (TRG). In addition to managing and setting the strategic direction of the firm, she also serves as Director of Research. With over 20 years of experience, she has become a trusted advisor, guiding mutual funds, hedge funds, and family offices on investment and portfolio management. Her deep analytical skills have been formally recognized, including being named a top Stock Picker in Construction Materials by The Financial Times/Starmine. A graduate of both Sewanee and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, Thompson is a regular guest speaker at industry trade conferences and corporate meetings. She has been a guest on CNBC and Bloomberg, and is quoted regularly by The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, and Bloomberg. The Sewanee Purple sat down with Thompson to hear her story.
Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
“I graduated from Sewanee in 1996 with a philosophy major and music minor. I was one of these students who were not sure what they were going to end up doing. However, I had the perfect Sewanee community experience where I had, of all things, a seminarian, helping me figure out what I was going to do in life. He said that the research side of finance would be a good personality fit. No one had really framed it as a career or a job that way, but I was a little too embarrassed to ask what finance is. I went to the Sewanee bookstore and got the Wall Street Journal and a guide on Investing, which happens to be in my bag. I wanted to get to Boston. It’s either Boston or New York, and for a variety of reasons, I felt like Boston was going to be a better personality fit for me, too. It was there that I was able to get a foot in the door. I learned about a little job called Equity Research. It’s a little bit like being a professor, except you are an industry specialist and you’re working for an investment bank, writing about this industry. And then I realized, okay, I’ve got to get back to business school. I went back to business school, and I was able to get that job in equity research. I worked for investment banks, and then I started my own business in May 2009 – at the bottom of the Great Recession.”
Could you briefly describe TRG’s core focus?
TRG is an equity research and advisory firm focused on the construction industrial value chain. One portion of our clients are hedge funds, mutual funds, and pension funds, and we help them with buying, holding, or selling stocks. The other side is taking the same knowledge base and advising companies. If they’re looking to buy another company, we will do due diligence. It is a little bit like investigative journalism. There are some numbers out there, but it’s often talking to people (CEOs) in the industry. Often we’re asked a lot, well, what data do you use? There is publicly available data. But often, we are there before the data is created. So we will see trends that will eventually catch up to support that data.
You started TRG in 2009, at the bottom of the Great Depression. What gave you the conviction to leave that comfortable job, despite the economic climate?
“I don’t know if I could do it again. I actually didn’t cover the industry I’m covering for most of my career. I covered consumer stocks, fun stocks. The investor days were a lot of fun. But I had developed a thesis that I thought we were heading into a depression. It was really based on the RV space, because I saw there was some financial engineering and bad behavior in that industry. It led the broad economy by 18 months. I came back from maternity leave in early 2008, and I told my boss and the head of the firm, ‘We’re heading to a Depression, I need to get out of consumer.’ And they said, “Okay, just sit tight.” Then a firm called Bear Stearns blew up in April 2008. About a month later, the folks I was working for said, ‘What industry would you want to cover?’ I said, well, I have a depression era basket of stocks, because my thesis is, the only thing that’s going to be happening is public construction. Because that’s what happened in the last Great Depression. They said, ‘Go for it.’ You have to write a book essentially and initiate coverage on a dozen companies. And I did that in very short order. I published it the day Lehman blew up. Over this time, my business partner and I were endlessly debating whether the trading structure as we know it is still viable. We didn’t think so. Our industry was still broken. We thought of doing it a different way. It was a concept called the Commission sharing agreement. We did research. It was a lot of endless debates and testing, and trying to understand this work.
In February 2009. We said we’re going to make it go at this. We wrote a business plan and launched on May 4, 2009. About half a dozen other firms started around when we did. They had a different industry focus than us. So it was an idea that was percolating in the U.S, and there were some early movers. We felt like we needed to move quickly to kind of claim this space and our industry expertise. It took a lot of support from family and friends, and also just buckling down and taking that giant leap off the dock into the water.
How did your Sewanee education lead to a career in business?
“Well, Sewanee saved my life. I was given a full-ride scholarship (Benedict), without which I would be unable to afford it. I noted there is a gentleman who did very well financially, and he funded the scholarship. That legacy is an amazing thing to carry forward. I hope one day to be able to do something like that or be able to carry on the good that way. I wish I could say I came to Sewanee knowing I was going to be a philosophy major. It happened to fit my schedule first semester, and then I really liked it. The philosophy department helped me to think about the what and the why. We talk about the what and the why a lot at TRG. It helped me in questioning things, really try to get to the deep root and understanding of things in general. It could be a philosophic concept like a certain virtue, or it could be a business concept, but getting into ‘what’s really driving this?’ is essential.”
What was the most challenging part of starting this venture?
“Not knowing. Not knowing if you were going to succeed, not knowing if you were going to make it, not knowing if you’re going to make payroll. We knew, even though we were starting a new business model, that we were going to be misunderstood by our prior firm members. We were prepared for that. It was hard having pretty nasty things said about you, but it was really just that people didn’t understand. And eventually they did. We also did not take outside capital. We had two key advisors who had loads of money. One was old money, one was new money, but they both said the same thing. They said, ‘I have plenty of money to seed you, but you need to be stingy with equity. I think you could do this on your own, and you’ll get more satisfaction.’ Because we are not a capital-intensive business. From a practical standpoint, that was pretty hard. And then lack of sleep. The first couple of years, I was young and didn’t operate on as much sleep. But it was great. We had some amazing times.”
How do you think AI has impacted your industry in terms of research?
“Well, you can’t replace dinner with two CEOs. No amount of AI is going to replace that. AI is going to be analyzing data that will eventually be created. For me, there are certain portions of Wall Street where it’s absolutely impacted it, but that’s not where we get our value. Some areas of AI help us become more efficient. But it’s still pretty early in the days. It’s helpful for us. There will be quarterly earnings calls that I may not be able to join. But if I want to get a good summary, just of the Q&A section, there’s an AI module that’s pretty good about getting quick highlights. But it is coming. It will change things. We have tried to construct our business such that there are certain barriers to entry for what we do, because people confide in us. And we’re a little bit keepers of secrets, too. And AI’s not and can’t do that. It’s quite the opposite.”
How is being attached and working for the Sewanee community important for you?
“I try to give back what was given to me. There are many ways you can do it. Financial help is obviously great and necessary, but time can sometimes be more valuable. I always say you can make money, but you can’t make time. So, I try to give time too. I’m trying to be that good Sewanee student, giving back to the community, keeping up with old professors, and keeping up with friends.”
Do you have a favorite philosophy book or a favorite philosopher?
“Well, I’m talking about Socrates today. The first book that I read in Dr. Peterman’s class was called ‘The Symposium.’ Now granted, students who have read it will say it is lurid, but here’s the deal. It’s about love. Like, what is love? It embodies the Socratic dialogue, and what was funny about it is this scene at a big dinner party, and people over the night are progressively getting drunker and drunker, talking about this subject. Through questioning, you realize, Oh, do they know what love is? It’s a great way to show the method of questioning.”
What’s your work-life balance like?
“Better than it was when I started TRG. It’s tricky because I think I’m working a lot less, but some of my friends are like, ‘Wow, you do work a lot.’ But I think about things. I do things differently. I enjoy some of the things I do because we’re constantly evolving and growing our business.
COVID significantly cut down on travel, which I appreciated. I felt like some of the travel was unnecessary. My girls are a freshman and a senior, so I’m just trying to enjoy them. While I still have them. I like a good hike in Sewanee. I still have my Sewanee bike, a specialized Rock Hopper. That was really fancy back then.”
What is one piece of advice you would give to a student graduating from Sewanee?
“Be open to having unexpected conversations and ask questions. Pay attention to details because people want to focus on your brain and your heart. This is going to sound like a silly example, but when I was getting ready to go to Boston, I was studying what people in my industry wore. I didn’t know, I had no idea. And that helps, because actually I had an interviewer tell me, ‘You’re doing this right because I’m focusing on your brain.’ Getting some practical advice, really practical advice from people who’ve been there, is really helpful. Sometimes people overlook that. Don’t be shy to ask for practical advice on things. Think about culture and values, and what you want to be, what you want to get out of things. If you go to a company and you see that the CEO yells at his admin, that’s not a place you want to work. It doesn’t matter how much money you make. It doesn’t. I think Sewanee breeds good people and people skills, but don’t be afraid to own that practical stuff just to help you be on the edge, because it could be a tough world out there, and I know it’s tough for you guys. “