Jim Skidmore has a thirty-year career as an operator, investor, board member, and consultant acquiring, building, integrating, and divesting private companies of all sizes across the food/protein, professional sports, resort, multi-family real estate, and retail automotive industries. He has extensive experience working directly with management teams both as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of businesses owned by Private Equity firms, Family Offices, and High Net Worth individuals, and thus has a unique, hands-on perspective of how to help operators and investors get the most out of their holdings. He has consistently delivered improved performance and enterprise value to businesses using his industry-specific knowledge, growth and margin enhancement processes, financial acumen, and executive leadership skills.
Most recently, he served as CEO to turn around and lead the sale of a family-owned integrated poultry producer, Interim CEO to complete the sale of a Private Equity-owned fully cooked egg product business, and as a strategy consultant for a privately-owned spice company. He also co-invested alongside Encore Consumer Capital for majority control of Tender Belly, LLC, a branded premium pork company, serving first as Executive Chairman and eventually CEO to guide the business out of severe COVID impacts. He sits on the board of several food businesses, playing an active role in the growth and operational strategies of those companies.
He founded Skidmore Holdings in 2011 to provide transformative, strategic, operational and integration expertise to investors, entrepreneurs and management teams making direct investments in operating businesses. All of his work has focused on driving growth and profitability of private and public portfolio companies and add-on acquisitions. In an extended engagement from 2012-16, he served as COO for the office of a prominent MLB athlete/celebrity/investor, building the investment infrastructure, architecting the athlete’s brand rehabilitation, and structuring three real estate funds while driving a 45% increase in net worth.
From 2001-11, Mr. Skidmore served as an Operating Partner with Booth Creek Management Corporation, a Family Office based in Vail, Colorado. In this role, Mr. Skidmore led all aspects of making control investments and add-on acquisitions across a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of protein, agricultural products, professional sports (NHL/NASCAR/Premier League), ski resorts, and retail automotive businesses. He identified target companies and negotiated, led diligence, structured financing for, and closed dozens of corporate and real estate related transactions. As an active board member, he worked closely with operating teams to drive strategic planning, capital budgeting, financial reporting, cash and risk management, acquisitions and divestures, and organizational incentive structures. During the 2008-12 recession, he negotiated multiple complex recapitalizations and debt restructurings with syndicated lenders.
Prior to Booth Creek, he was an Engagement Manager in the Chicago office of McKinsey & Company where he led cross functional teams driving operational improvements in the manufacturing, distribution, and transportation spaces. He typically served industrial clients in troubled situations requiring quick and material actions to generate immediate cash flow.
At Heller Financial, Inc, he was an Assistant Vice President in credit underwriting and transacting roles in Chicago and San Francisco and was responsible for providing debt and equity financing to Private Equity clients. He was named to Heller’s Chairman’s Club as a Top-50 worldwide performer while building the firm’s first $300M+ syndicated leveraged loan portfolio.
Mr. Skidmore holds an MBA in Finance, with Honors, from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (Booth) and a BBA, with Distinction, from the University of Michigan Business School (Ross), which he attended on a full housing and tuition Evans Scholarship earned as a golf caddie at Point O’ Woods CC in Benton Harbor, MI.
