A Book By Joseph Russo

BREADMAN is the true story of Joseph Russo, who came up through a hard childhood and the overnight streets of New York City. He delivered bread while the city slept and rose from nothing to managing billions of dollars on the trading floors of Wall Street.

It is a story of survival, reinvention, and the long climb from a place with no advantages to the top of the financial world. Along the way, Russo discovered that the streets he came from and the trading floors he rose to ran on the very same rules. The same players. The same power struggles. The same tests of character.

He had seen all of it before, on the streets he grew up on and on a bread truck at two in the morning, long before he ever saw it on a trading desk at two in the afternoon.

The game never changes. Only the players do.

Where you start doesn’t determine where you finish.

You don’t need an Ivy League degree, a wealthy family, or a last name that opens doors. What matters is what you do with the hand you were dealt. The work ethic, discipline, and determination to keep showing up when no one is watching.

I learned those lessons long before I ever stepped onto a Wall Street trading floor.

If a kid who delivered bread at midnight can make it, so can you.