My Evolution as a Serial Entrepreneur

As an eight-time CEO and board member of some the most iconic businesses in the country, I think it’s safe to say I have learned how to navigate the C-suite and the board room. Over the years, I have experienced the highs of business success, the thrill of collaboration and innovation, and the inevitable setbacks along the way. Through it all, I consider myself lucky to have had the privilege of working with many wonderful brands and incredibly talented professionals.

That may sound like a fond farewell, but that’s not the case… in this case.    

After having served in senior management positions for leading companies, such as 7- Eleven, Pearle Vision, Rave Cinemas, Circle K, Taco Bell, and Blockbuster, I launched the next chapter of my professional life… over a decade ago.

I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit. Throughout my career, I have consistently invested in private businesses with an eye toward supporting their growth. And now that I have largely left the public sector, I am able to pursue my passion for nurturing, course-correcting and reinventing promising businesses with my full attention.

This has led me to found JAMCO Interests to manage my equity investments, along with several trusted colleagues and partners. Together, we have focused primarily on acquiring quick service restaurant (QSR)/casual dining franchises.

What Gets My Juices Flowing?

I have always had a strong interest in consumer-oriented, multi-unit retail businesses. Nothing excites me more than looking at a business and seeing how we can help them deliver significant bottom-line and top-line improvement, increase overall efficiency, and achieve much-needed scale.

Honestly, solving business puzzles gets my juices flowing. My colleagues and I at JAMCO love dissecting a company and figuring out how to make a consumer proposition more appealing to the customer; look for highly effective ways to communicate to prospective customers; and rally an organization around a central vision. There’s truly nothing more satisfying than building a strategy, executing on it, and then seeing it succeed. Of course, there’s always bumps in the road along the way, but that only makes the success all the sweeter.

In creating JAMCO, I am able to bring the collective wisdom I have acquired over many years, combined with the exceptional talents of my partners, to coach, provide capital and share expertise with the goal of developing successful businesses and tomorrow’s business leaders.  

The Foundational Pillars of JAMCO 

I pride myself on having a managerial style that is people-centric. I believe that an effective business strategy starts by focusing on consumer insights and leveraging them to grow profitably. And the success of any business plan starts with getting team members aligned.

The underlying pillars of this approach to business success involves harnessing innovation to achieve a strategic vision. This means looking for opportunities at every turn, and being bold enough to take risks to be a market leader. It also involves having a mindset that every problem is actually an opportunity. Having the ability to find out what's not working, whether it's financial or otherwise, and then fix it, is at the heart of what we do.

The third pillar is an unwavering drive to achieve exponential growth. Being ambitious and setting the bar high is an important part of our mission. Equally important is a devotion to teamwork and getting the most from our people. Hiring the right leaders, inspiring employees, and putting together organizations that have good role players in their specific skills that come together as a team is at the very core of our approach.

What We’re Doing Today and Where We’re Going Tomorrow

Together with my founding partners, Larry Zine and Mitzi Brown, we are applying our experience as industry leaders in financial and operational turnarounds, consumer and brand marketing, and scaling businesses to fuel new opportunities through JAMCO.

At present, JAMCO is the majority stakeholder of BRIX Holdings, a Dallas-based multi-brand franchising company and Amici Partners Group, LLC, an experienced investor group with a national and international franchisor background which acquired Friendly’s Restaurants in December 2020. JAMCO is a member of TriArtisan TGIF Partners LLC, which owns and operates TGI Friday’s®, the iconic American casual dining bar and restaurant chain with more than 900 restaurants in 60 countries.

And our sights are also set on the horizon. We are currently focusing on JAMCO’s strategic positioning in order to allow us to maximize growth. One of the more exciting things we are doing is building a shared services platform that will be invaluable with future acquisitions that don’t want the hassle of managing back-office operations or creating a franchise sales infrastructure. This platform for growth will enable us to be highly efficient, while attracting the best talent that we can then share amongst the brands we own or acquire.

The businesses that we view as well suited for acquisition by JAMCO would be companies with real potential, reasonable scale in revenue, and in need of strategic guidance and business model development. These will tend to be smaller companies with growth potential, ones that are looking for capital and experienced C-Suite managerial coaching. We believe we have a lot to offer this type of business. 

So, as you can see, my personal story as an entrepreneur continues to evolve. I’m very excited about this chapter in that story and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences along this journey. I hope you’ll join me.