James E. Nevels
Recipients : James E. Nevels
James E. Nevels
Founder and Chairman
The Swarthmore Group
With vision, leadership, and commitment to education reform in the Greater Philadelphia region, James E. Nevels personifies the ideal of the Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership.
In 1991, Mr. Nevels founded The Swarthmore Group, an independent investment and financial advisory firm that has grown to be one of the largest minority-owned firms in the United States and among the 500 largest asset management funds in the country.
Prior to starting The Swarthmore Group, Mr. Nevels was an investment banker at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., Inc. and Prudential Bache Securities, Inc. Mr. Nevels also practiced law as counsel in bond transactions with the law firm Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll.
His commitment to improving education for the lives of children in the Greater Philadelphia region is evident in his being appointed a member of the three-person Board of Control of The Chester-Upland School District in 1998 to administer the $65 million budget of this state-declared financially distressed school district and served as a gubernatorial appointee on that Board until 2001. In December 2001, the Governor of Pennsylvania appointed Mr. Nevels as chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, an enterprise having a $1.8 billion budget. The Commission oversees the turnaround of the financially distressed Philadelphia School System, the seventh largest school district in the United States.
Mr. Nevels is an honors (cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) graduate of Bucknell University, and holds an A.B. degree in Political Science and Philosophy. In addition, he earned two advanced degrees at the University of Pennsylvania -- an M.B.A. degree from the Wharton School and a J.D. degree from the Law School. Mr. Nevels currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of Bucknell University and on the Board's Executive Committee, as a member of the Board of Berea College, the Board of Visitors for Temple University's Fox School of Business and Management and the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He also is Treasurer and a member of the Board of the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities.