(James S.) Jim Pepitone is managing director and chief scientist for Pepitone Worldwide LLC and a 25-year veteran in management consulting. He is recognized as a pioneer and authority in human work-systems design. In the mid-1980s, Jim acquired the nickname "the architect of high-productivity work."

Jim is perhaps now best known for his work establishing competitive advantage for major companies through the creation of substantial improvements in human effectiveness, productivity, and sustainability in human-dependent operations. Jim has also been active in recent years as an advocate for the formalization of "humaneering" as a managerial technology based on applications of the biological, psychological and social sciences.

Jim’s industry experience included positions as an industrial products sales representative for a major NYSE company, marketing manager and vice president of sales for a market-leading high-tech manufacturer, director of operations improvement for a venture capital firm, and general manager of the PC software division for a NASDAQ-listed leader in the software industry.

Jim founded a private consulting firm in the late 1970s to gain access to a broader range of operations-performance challenges. He firmly established his professional reputation in the 1980s by distinguishing principles for the design and management of knowledge-based roles from the traditional management methods that best suited production and logistics work. In the 1990s, Jim pioneered the repositioning of traditional corporate training/HRD/OD functions into a more formidable source of human-performance improvement. This work included the formation and support of internal "performance consulting" functions within major companies, in part by offering the first "apprenticeship program" for internal consultants ever provided by an external consulting firm.

At the turn of the century Jim’s explains, "We choose to remain a mid-sized firm by consulting industry standards and generally limit our major projects to 12 to 15 each year so that I can be involved in all of our work. Also, we have purposely avoided the packaged studies and standard solutions that other consulting firms sell. That’s not what we are about. We create dramatic improvements in human-dependent operations—increased human work effectiveness and productivity, but also lower turnover, faster work, better quality, less wasted effort, etc. Executives look to us for help when they need substantially better results from their operations. They contact us the first time because they want breakthrough methods, implementation leadership, quick payback, and sustainable results. They call us back because we did everything we promised and more, and we have earned their trust."

In addition to managing a full schedule of client work, Jim directs the firm’s research, responds to invitations for professional writing, and provides executive education programs on advanced management practices for organizational operations. He served on the adjunct faculty at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University for several years and has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities. Jim has authored three books in his field: Future Training: A Roadmap for Restructuring the Training Function (1995), Motivating Employees (1999), and Human Performance Consulting: Transforming Human Potential into Productive Business Performance (2000).

Jim has a bachelor’s degree in industrial management, an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin, and an MS in organization development from Pepperdine University. Currently, Jim is completing his doctorate in organization change at Pepperdine University.

Jim can be contacted at jimpepitone@pepitone.com.

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