[Leadership Vault] JP James: Building Companies and Investing In Your Community

by Jeff Bond

At the core of my work is helping global business, communications, and people leaders create meaningful engagement with their teams and customers. Together with my wonderful colleagues at Chat With Leaders Media and People First Elevation Team, we deliver all-hands meeting support, content, podcasts, creative, cross-cultural training, speaker coaching, and strategic advisory solutions. We are committed to unlocking the power of inclusive storytelling, shared experiences, leadership development, and mixed media to help our clients authentically connect with their most important stakeholders.

Our core values—Partnership, Inclusion, and Empowerment—guide everything we do. By fostering strong partnerships, embracing diverse perspectives, and equipping leaders with the tools to succeed, we aim to transform the way people engage while achieving meaningful work.

Outside of work, I cherish time with my wife and three children, balancing my roles as a husband and father with my professional life in Atlanta, GA. Let's connect and explore how we can create impactful media solutions for your business.

Chat Guest

JP James was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and his family is from India. He knew since the age of 12 that he wanted to be an entrepreneur! When he was 12 years old and the internet was just beginning to flourish, he initiated his career by going to his local library to give lessons about the functions of a computer. He was making nearly $60,000 a year by the age of 14. At age 17, he was starting two new ventures: he began his first company and was admitted into Georgia Tech. Since then, James has helped start, acquire, restructure, and scale stagnant ventures in their management strategy, business process automation, technology automation, and capital solutions. Having built ventures from startup to hundreds of millions in valuation. He owns, invests, and advises fast-growth ventures.

Founder & Chairman, Hive Financial Systems, LLC

James invested and helped scale Hive Financial Systems, a financial technology company, providing technology to a portfolio of closely held consumer lenders. Grew almost 8000% in revenue since 2017, in less than 30 months as of the start of 2020, as one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Designed and built an end-to-end financial automation software including marketing, underwriting, loan management and analytics architecture with capital from multiple VCs and balance sheet financing from several institutional lenders for its closely held portfolio of lenders. Co-Author of two patents filed on System for Processing Loans using Machine Learning and Identifying and Processing Data impacting Enterprise Valuation.

Chairman of the Board, Libreum International LLC

Scaled Libreum International into a multi-national conglomerate stretching with multiple global offices and hundreds of employees serving advisory capacities for Capital Markets, IT / Software Development, Accounting & Bookkeeping Services, and Operational Consulting. With over 150 clients spanning 15 years in industries as diverse as FinTech, Financial Services, Medical Devices, B2B SaaS applications, Tech-Enabled ventures in Manufacturing, Logistics, Restaurants, and Apparel.

Founder, Libreum Capital Management

Libreum was a multi-strategy manager of managers and fund of funds hedge fund focused on the applications of risk management utilizing agent-based modeling understanding bottom-up position risk.
Built fund and partners and classmates at Georgia Tech
Partnered and brought in traders in commodities, forex, energy trading, fixed income, merger arb, convertible arb, long-short equities, and quant strategies
Trade desks in Chicago, NYC, and South Korea
Sales and administration in Atlanta, West Palm Beach, Mumbai, Taipei, London

Family & Non-Profit Activity

Wife Mary, and 4 daughters, Evelyn, Nora, Alaina, and Leanna
TiE Atlanta President 2020-2021
TiE Atlanta Angels, Co-Founder & Chair – $4.3MM deployed in 2.5 years in early-stage ventures
Board Member of Atlanta Police Foundation, 21 Century Leaders, Buckhead Club
Active National Member of BENS, Business Executives for National Security
Has taught Sunday school at Buckhead Church for the last 7 years.

Chat Highlights

What major changes or adjustments have you had to make in your leadership as a result of the coronavirus pandemic?
Given that JP leads teams in different parts of the world, we discussed how he’s continuing to keep his teams engaged, positive, and accountable to continued business growth activities during the crises.
Why is Atlanta such a great place to do business, raise a family, and work as an entrepreneur and investor?
JP has noticed that people don’t want to connect with the tragedy that’s happened and feel the emotion around the problems people are facing. He is called to action to give back to the community and challenges all leaders to do the same. You grow as a person when you help people that you don’t know as well as the people you know. Pro Tip: It’s not just writing checks.

Zoom Video Chat with JP James

Get In Touch

Connect with JP James on LinkedIn
Learn about TiE Atlanta and how they’re fostering entrepreneurship at atlanta.tie.or
Learn more about HIVE Financial Systems at hivefs.com