Dan Franzese On The Mike Vilardi Show

He grew up in a blue-collar town and learned the value of hard work from his father who worked for more than 40 years as a union carpenter. A top student, Dan was awarded a degree in political science, with honors, from Amherst College. While in college, he served as a Congressional intern in the Capitol Hill office of Congressman Gregory Carman (R). Dan went on to earn his MBA in finance from the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Dan helped pay for these degrees with summer and part-time work as a carpenter’s assistant, starting at age 16.

After graduating from Wharton, Dan made billions of dollars of successful investments as a portfolio manager for one of the world’s largest pension funds. He went on to other roles in finance, becoming a leading expert in the bond market while working at Merrill Lynch. Dan has raised tens of billions of dollars of growth capital for hundreds of companies which has helped create thousands of jobs. Not one to sit still, Dan has been very active in his community. He spent a decade helping out with youth sports programs, including coaching eight seasons of little league baseball. He had a particular knack for teaching the fundamentals of baseball to very young players, who always enjoyed learning from “Coach Dan.”

Dan has been married for 36 years to his college sweetheart, Vicky Franzese. Together they raised two great children. They were entrepreneurs in the early years of the Internet era and started up a successful online travel guide that they subsequently sold to a major media company. They have made other successful venture capital investments as well.

Dan won a competitive five-way primary and was the Republican nominee for Florida's 22nd Congressional District in 2022.