A former Belvedere, California resident, Michael T. Jackson obtained his BS at the University of Virginia before attending the University of Southern California to earn his MBA. After graduation, he worked as an investment analyst and portfolio manager on Wall Street. He later moved to San Francisco to form an investment partnership. Capitalizing on his knowledge of financial markets, particularly in the area of growth industries, Michael T. Jackson started his own hedge fund company called Emerging Growth Management in 1986. He grew client assets to approx. $1.2 billion by the time he retired in 2002.

Retirement in Florida did not slow him down. In 2014, Michael T. Jackson founded the Napa Medical Research Foundation, a non-profit focused on researching treatment and therapies for an array of musculoskeletal conditions and diseases. Michael T. Jackson and his wife Pepper donate their resources to many other philanthropic causes, including breast cancer research. They divide their free time between their home in Florida and the Bay Area, where their five children and nine grandchildren live.