Team
Stewart Hamel, serves as Managing Principal of Hamel Interests and Private Equity, LLC, a Shreveport, LA-based private investment company with subsidiaries engaged in aviation, real estate, energy, private equity and digital marketing.
In his early twenties, Stewart began his career as a business intermediary, where he facilitated the buying, selling and financing of privately-held business. In 2002, Stewart and fellow Shreveporter Dean Harrold (former President of Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas) co-founded Empire Mergers and Acquisitions.
In 2004, Stewart was recruited to join the launch team of a seed-capital-backed internet marketing firm, ReachLocal, Inc. As National Sales Manager, he specialized in building high-performance sales teams; where he and his teams won 11 of the 17 intercompany national sales awards. By 2009, ReachLocal had grown to over 850 employees with 35 offices in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The same year, based on its five-year revenue growth, ReachLocal was named by Deloitte as the fastest growing company in North America (Technology Fast 500TM). ReachLocal is the only Internet Company to top the list since Google’s inclusion in 2004 and of all No. 1 companies since 2004; ReachLocal’s growth rate remains second only to Google’s.
ReachLocal filed its S-1 on December 22, 2009 and followed with an IPO on May 20, 2010 (NASDAQ: RLOC). As a founding member of ReachLocal’s distribution organization, Stewart became one of its largest individual shareholders. After six years with the company, Stewart left to launch Hamel Interests and Private Equity, LLC. a Shreveport-LA based private investment company engaged in aviation, real estate, energy, private equity and digital marketing.
Since 2004, Stewart has served as President of Hamel’s Farm, LLC, a family owned real estate business in Shreveport, LA, where he helped procure one of the largest urban natural gas partnerships within the Haynesville Shale; a formation now recognized as the largest natural gas field in the continental United States. The Hamel Family Partnership selected Petrohawk Energy Corp (NYSE: HK) as its natural gas exploration partner. The first Petrohawk-Hamel well was reported on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, on April 30, 2009.
Stewart is active in a variety of business and community interests. He serves on the board of Oxford University’s, Saïd Business School, Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC), Co-Habitat, SB Magazine, is a Shreveport ambassador for CABL’s Leadership Louisiana and serves on the Advisory Council and Development Board of the London Symphony Orchestra.
As a board member of Oxford University’s, Saïd Business School, Stewart was asked to design a plan that would increase alumni donor participation. Stewart architected and beta tested the plan. A few months later he was credited with creating the highest alumni class participation rate in Oxford’s 800 year history while setting a new business class fundraising record.
Stewart and his wife Lucia live and Shreveport, LA and are parents to two wonderful children.
