And the writer left out that he ran a porn house. What's with the door-to-door salesman thing?
David Rosen
President and CEO
Competence Group Inc.
AGE: 35
The 10 summers David Rosen spent ringing doorbells to sell books turned out to be good preparation for raising tens of millions of dollars for the Gore-Lieberman ticket, Hillary Clinton's Senate race and other prominent Democratic candidates.
At Southwestern Co., a Nashville, Tenn.-based direct sales firm that has trained thousands of college students during its 132-year history, Mr. Rosen got to the point where he made sales at five of every six households he called on. He still holds the record for first-year sales, according to Dan Moore, Southwestern's marketing vice-president. The firm's alumni include two current governors, a senator and former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
"He's the most dedicated, hard-working, organized person I've met in a long time," say Chicago lawyer Myron "Mike" Cherry, a veteran Democratic fund-raiser and general counsel for the gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Rod Blagojevich, D-Chicago, for which Mr. Rosen has helped raise about $1 million outside Illinois. "And he's got a Rolodex that would rival (former President) Clinton's," Mr. Cherry says.
What sets Mr. Rosen and his Chicago-based company, Competence Group Inc., apart is his application of business discipline, training and sales techniques to the art of fund raising.
"I can't talk someone into giving money," says Mr. Rosen. "You just have to call a tremendous amount of people and find those who are interested."
He caught the political bug while taking a political science course taught by David Wilhelm, a longtime Chicago-based political consultant who chairs the Blagojevich campaign.
Mr. Rosen credits his success to Southwestern's rigorous training.
"You can use it whether you're selling airplanes, insurance or politicians," he says.
PAUL MERRION
It's Jim Levin who owned the Chicago strip club.