International Aspirations
Executive Secretary, EXIM
Growing up, Chicago was the "big city" to this small town Northern Illinois native, but Tom Reynolds '13 ended up taking his Chicago-Kent degree past even his wildest dreams—and all the way into the federal government.
International Aspirations
“When I was interviewing with the White House and Export-Import Bank of the United States, Chicago-Kent was part of my background and history, and I believe that was a compelling consideration,” says Thomas Reynolds ’13. “The Biden-Harris Administration has actively recruited people from across the country with diverse, varied, and sometimes untraditional backgrounds, which has made our federal government that much stronger for it and a reflection of our great nation.”
Reynolds is currently the Executive Secretary at the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), an independent executive branch that facilitates the export of U.S. goods and services. He took on the post in March 2024 after being appointed by the Biden-Harris Administration.
“EXIM is unique in that it is an entity of the federal government, but it’s also a bank that functions much like those in the private sector,” says Reynolds. “In 1934, as part of his New Deal [program], President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established EXIM to support U.S. exporters and U.S. jobs.” Today EXIM fills important needs in competing with foreign countries and their export credit agencies, supporting transformational exports and companies, and bridging the gap when the private sector cannot or will not support bankable transactions.
While not currently practicing law, this appointment is a natural extension of Reynolds’s career as an international trade and investment lawyer.
At Chicago-Kent College of Law, Reynolds studied international and comparative law, as well as business law, earning certificates in both areas.
“Chicago is actually a good place to start as an international lawyer because it’s a global city, has several major companies headquartered there, is home to some of the best and most in-demand manufacturing in the world, and is a major transportation hub,” he says. “I thought, and it turned out to be right, that Chicago-Kent would allow me to hit the ground running in that legal market.”
For someone who had grown up in a small town, Chicago held its own allure to Reynolds.
“I was excited about the prospect of moving to the ‘big city’ I knew as a child in northern Illinois,” he says. “Even when I walked from the train station or downtown to campus in snowy, windy weather, among the skyscrapers, a part of me was always grateful for the opportunity to live and go to law school here.”
During his time as a student, he held leadership roles at the International Moot Court Honor Society and with the Journal of International and Comparative Law. He also took a place in the very first Entrepreneurial Law Clinic.
“Kent’s emphasis on preparing students for the real legal world, including its stellar legal writing courses, top-notch trial advocacy and litigation program, and clinics with experienced practitioners, gives an early edge to students and recent grads in the workplace,” he says. “The Chicago-Kent alumni I worked with early in my career also had boots-on-the-ground, technical knowledge, and a facility with the minutiae that seems to be fairly unique among trade law practitioners.”
Reynolds paid it forward by advocating for Chicago-Kent alumni as he furthered his career, which quickly brought him to big law in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in international trade law.
“If not for Chicago-Kent’s career services, I may not have interned at the labor law firm I worked at while studying, nor started my career in international trade law in Chicago with the boutique law firm of Kent alumni,” he says. “I like to also think that I helped pave a path for other Chicago-Kent alumni at the big law firm I worked for. By the time I left, by my count there were more Chicago-Kent alumni working there—including in D.C.—than when I started almost seven years before.”
Reynolds was recently named a Top Lawyer Under 40 by the Hispanic National Bar Association, and he has some advice for Chicago-Kent students aspiring to get to where he is today.
“Your career is a marathon, not a sprint,” he says. “Even if you did not get the summer job you wanted after your 1L year or you did not graduate with a job offer (I didn’t), time, focus, and persistence can get you to where you want to be.”
