Bill Walton

Bill Walton is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty and Managing Editor, Host of The Bill Walton Show which features in-depth conversations with leaders, entrepreneurs and thinkers who offer fresh perspectives on money, culture and politics.

Bill has an extensive background in leadership roles as an executive, investor and entrepreneur where he has been involved with starting, leading and financing established businesses, start-ups, art, music, education and theater organizations, policy and political action groups and feature films.

In 2016 and 2017, Bill worked in the Donald J. Trump Presidential Transition Team as Leader of the Agency Action and Landing Teams for all the federal economic agencies including Treasury and the IRS, Commerce, USTR, SEC, Social Security, FCC and other independent financial agencies.

Bill served as chairman of the board and CEO of Allied Capital Corporation (NYSE) from 1997 to 2009, and as chairman until 2010 when the company was successfully merged with Ares Capital. Under his leadership Allied Capital grew from $600 million in managed assets to $9 billion. Its private equity portfolio held a majority interest in over 20 companies with aggregate revenues of over $5 billion.  As CEO, he and his management team helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and management teams grow and expand their businesses.

Today, Bill also manages Rappahannock Ventures, a private equity firm and Rush River Entertainment.

Through Rush River, Bill was a producer of Max Rose, starring Jerry Lewis, which was released in August 2016 with an early cut screened at Cannes Film Festival in 2013. A second film, The Ticket, starring Dan Stevens, was selected as one of only 10 films for Tribeca Film Festival’s 2016 U.S. Narrative Competition.

Earlier in his career, Bill worked as a Managing Director of Butler Capital Corporation, a private equity firm; as the personal investment advisor to William S. Paley, founder of CBS;  Senior Vice President in Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb’s Merger and Acquisition Group and Vice President of Continental Illinois Bank.

Bill has served as a board member of the Heritage Foundation, American Conservative Union (CPAC), American Enterprise Institute, Media Research Center, Council for National Policy, Committee on the Present Danger: China, US Chamber of Commerce, National Venture Capital Association, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship and the Financial Services Roundtable. In 2015 he served as Chairman of the Tea Party Patriots.

He has also served on the boards of Africa ASAP, The National Symphony Orchestra (President), Kelley School of Business (Chairman), Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts (Executive Committee and Chairman of the Finance Committee) and the National Gallery of Art (Collectors Committee and Trustees Council).

With his wife Sarah, Bill also founded two for-profit education service providers: Language Odyssey which taught Spanish and French to K through 6th grade elementary school students in 12 states, and SuccessLab which taught reading to inner city public school children in Chicago.

Educated in public schools in Indianapolis, Bill served in the U.S. Army as an enlisted specialist at the Pentagon.  He completed his B.S. from Indiana University and his M.B.A. (Beta Gamma Sigma) from Indiana’s Kelley School of Business.

A Life member of NRA and MENSA, he lives with his wife, Sarah and their three terriers in Washington, VA. He is President of the Washington Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company.