Who Are WE?
Jim Becker
In the mid 90’s, Jim was a co-founder and President of PHT, an innovative health care information technology company that developed web-based systems to gather pharmaceutical clinical trial data, an industry tightly regulated by the FDA. PHT now dominates the market for electronic patient diaries, the preferred means of capturing patient experiences during the testing of new drugs and was recently sold for $150M. In 2001, Jim co-founded Wingspeed, a company that provided data communication systems to commercial airlines, an industry carefully regulated by both the FAA in the US and EASA in Europe. Wingspeed’s unique product and service solutions enabled the firm to enter a market dominated for 30 years by two major aerospace companies. Wingspeed provided the data communication solutions for such notable customers as FedEx, World Airways and Skybus Airlines.
In both these organizations Jim directed the company and product strategy, recruited and hired most of the management team, oversaw engineering, marketing and sales and raised most of the funding. Between the two companies he raised over $40MM from classic venture funds and from foreign hedge funds and wealthy individuals. He grew PHT to 100 people and a bookings run rate of over $12MM and Wingspeed to 45 people and a revenue run rate of $13MM.
Prior to PHT, Jim was president of STM, a small healthcare IT company that provided medical billing software. At STM he became intimately familiar with the complexity of our healthcare payment system. Prior to STM, Jim spent 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He oversaw product management for the workstations and low end servers group, a $1.5 billion business, during a period of rapid growth with organizations in both Palo Alto, CA and Maynard, MA reporting to him. Jim spent much of his time with customers and software suppliers helping them transition from VAX to MIPS to Alpha architectures. Jim’s first commercial position after receiving his MBA was with WR Grace as a senior financial analyst and then as Eastern Regional Sales manager for a small Grace division.
Jim spent eight years flying C-130s worldwide for the United States Air Force, with the first three years on active duty with a tour in Vietnam and then for five years with the Reserves. He has continued to fly most of his life and has piloted aircraft ranging from supersonic jets to helicopters. He taught flying at the local airport while going to graduate school.
Jim has four degrees from Dartmouth College and its professional schools. He received his AB from Dartmouth, his BE and ME from Thayer School of Engineering and his MBA from Tuck School of Business. He is the holder of a US Patent in avionics. Jim is a past President of the Tuck Alumni Club of Boston and past Class Agent for Thayer School. He was also a volunteer for the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and the Community Consulting Teams. Jim is currently Chair of the Board Directors of LightHawk, ( http://www.LightHawk.org ) a non-profit that uses aviation to advance conservation causes.
Mimi Macksoud
Mimi Macksoud brings over 35 years of experience in diverse industries and companies to Hunter Strategies. She has worked extensively as an advisor to CEOs, CMOs, other C-suite executives and boards of directors, and has considerable operational experience as an entrepreneur, CEO, and chief marketing officer. Mimi is currently a member of the board of directors of Community Consulting Teams of Boston, Inc. where she co-chairs the Client Development Committee. She is also a Trustee and Co-Chair of Danforth Art, where she is a member of the Governance Committee.
Prior to Huter Strategies, Mimi was CEO and Founder of Orion’s Belt, Inc., the pioneer in business applications of Social Network Analysis and relationship mapping. She raised financing, drove product and market strategy, and recruited the founding management team. In 2006, she negotiated the sale of the company to Generate, Inc., a provider of SaaS-based business intelligence and media services, netting a multiple return to investors. She worked with Generate as Vice President, Business Development and Strategy and Advisor until 2008 when the company was acquired by Dow Jones.
Before starting Orion’s Belt, Mimi was associated with three leading professional services firms – Arthur D. Little, Price Waterhouse and Ropes & Gray – and founded her own strategy consulting firm. She spent 13 years at Arthur D. Little, where she established and led the marketing and sales effectiveness practice, working with companies to improve their performance through better marketing. Her clients included leading companies in consumer products, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and medical products, pulp and paper, business services, computers, telecommunications and chemicals. She was Client Relationship Executive for GTE and Du Pont.
At Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), Mimi was one of the first marketing directors in the firm and the first head of marketing for the northeast region. She was responsible for marketing planning and budgeting, advertising, public relations, market research and sales support. At Ropes & Gray, the largest law firm in New England, Mimi was the firm’s first chief marketing officer and Director of Client Service and Practice Development. During her three years at the firm, she focused on strategic and marketing planning, selling skills training for partners, cross-selling of services, practice development and sales strategies, innovative billing approaches, and communications.
Mimi also provides consulting services with Sage Partners LLC ( http://www.sagepartners.net )
Mimi holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where she was elected an Edward Tuck Scholar; received a BA in mathematics from Manhattanville College; and studied painting in the Studio Diploma program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She holds a patent for determining connections between people using private networks. Prior to Tuck, she worked as a systems programmer/analyst for the Pratt & Whitney Division of United Technologies Corp.