Tom Healy comes from a family of cops and farmers. He left the dirt road he grew up on to study philosophy at Harvard and later got his MFA in poetry from Columbia.
A veteran of the New York art scene, Healy opened one of the first art galleries in Chelsea, chaired the board of the public arts presenter, Creative Time, and led a nonprofit effort to rebuild New York's downtown arts community after 9/11.

Healy is a visiting fellow at the Goreé Institute in Dakar, Senegal and a lecturer at the Pratt Institute. He has traveled the world on international microfinance projects and AIDS prevention efforts and was a member of President Clinton’s White House Council on AIDS.

He divides his time between New York, Miami and Washington, where his partner, Fred Hochberg, is Chairman of the United States Export-Import Bank for President Obama.