← James Penz
About

Learned the playbook. Ran it with my own capital. Now I ship it.

One throughline across everything: turn an ambiguous business problem into a running system that moves the P&L. The rare part is doing both halves — sizing the value like an investor and building the system like an engineer.

James Penz
In his own words

Not just a strategist who writes decks or a developer who builds tools — the person who does both, and gets the entire organization to adopt and perform.

Thirteen-plus years redesigning enterprise operating models that integrate human teams and AI agents — across commercial, product, and back-office functions. The work has been the same shape at every stop: find where the value is, build the thing that captures it, and get people to actually use it.

The arc

Capgemini → EY → Bain → Paradosi → ClearForge.

2013–2016

Capgemini

Financial-services technology transformation

Four end-to-end enterprise implementations for Fortune 500 insurers, processing $500M+ in annual premium volume.

2016–2019

EY

Performance Improvement · AI-Automation

Self-taught the leading automation/AI platforms (UiPath, Blue Prism, Azure AI); designed, built, and deployed 7 AI-enabled processes to Azure production; built team capability.

2019–2023

Bain & Company

Senior Manager · first hire, Automation Center of Excellence

Built the firm's AI/automation practice from zero while running full client cases (teams of 10) across aerospace, manufacturing, healthcare, PE, and supply chain. Promoted Consultant → Senior Manager over 4.5 years. $500M+ quantified P&L impact.

2023–Now

Paradosi Partners

Co-founder & CEO

Co-founded a traditional search fund; raised $890K from family offices; applied AI to the entire acquisition lifecycle. Named "favorite search team" by the investor base.

2025–Now

ClearForge.AI

Founder & CEO

The full AI value-creation lifecycle for clients — strategy through production, one accountable team, no handoffs.

Education & credentials

The foundation.

B.S.

Economics — Michigan State University

2013
Exec

AI: Implications for Business Strategy — MIT Sloan

Executive Education, 2018–2019
Cert

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Get in touch

Operator, investor, applied-AI builder. Pick the conversation you came for.