top of page

Jim Sharpe

Jim Sharpe has been affiliated with Harvard Business School as both a lecturer and Entrepreneur in Residence concentrating in the area of turnarounds, entrepreneurship and running small businesses.  His interests are in the areas of business acquisitions, manufacturing, B2B niche marketing, pricing, leadership, family balance, large/small company differences, ethics, exit strategies and employee empowerment.

Extrusion Technology, an aluminum extrusion fabricator owned by Jim, was sold to a private equity firm in December 2008. The company, purchased in 1987, after an 11 month unfunded search, grew from $4MM to $32MM developing a value added products niche in the Datacomm/Telecom electronics markets and a supplemental factory in Xiamen, China. After taking on substantial debt, Jim transformed the second generation, family owned business. A focus on quality led to early qualification for ISO-9000 in 1992 and emphasis on lead time reduction and lean manufacturing techniques resulted in a Bronze Shingo award in 2008.

Jim has a BS degree from Babson College and after graduating from Harvard Business School in 1976, joined General Electric and moved on to Product General Manager positions within the GE materials businesses. After 5 years, he left GE to run 3 turn-around situations which prepared him to strike off on his own in 1987.

bottom of page