James Penz

I build AI that moves the P&L.

$500M+ sized. $30M+ realized. And a production AI operating system I architected personally, running four businesses unattended today. Ex-Bain Senior Manager — first hire of Bain's Automation Center of Excellence.

AI value creation · PEApplied-AI leadershipOpen to the right roleMetro Detroit · remote-first
$0M+
P&L impact sized across Fortune 100 engagements
$0M+
Realized — delivered savings and in-year margin, not projections
0K
Lines of production AI — architected and shipped solo
0
Fortune-100-scale engagements led at Bain
2013–16
Capgemini
Fortune 500 platform transformations
2016–19
EY
7 AI processes to Azure production
2019–23
Bain & Company
Senior Manager · first hire, Automation CoE
2023–
Paradosi Partners
Co-founder · search fund, $890K raised
2025–
ClearForge.AI
Founder · production AI deployment
The market problem

Funds have the capital and the mandate. The constraint is operators.

The industry named a seat for this — the AI Operating Partner — and the search firms defining it list three backgrounds worth hiring: founders of AI-driven companies, technical product leaders with hands-on AI, and ML-and-strategy people from Tier-1 consultancies. My career is those three in sequence. One more thing the data says that most AI pitches miss: the prize has moved from cost to revenue. I build for both sides of the P&L, because that's where the math points.

“The impact of these roles is black and white… measurable digital transformation results in the form of net-new profitability or top-line margin expansion.”

— Heidrick & Struggles, on the AI Operating Partner
The proof, in two tracks

Pick the lens you're hiring through.

Track 01

AI Operating Partner · Value Creation

For funds & portfolio leadership — MD, operating partner, value creation

  • $20M realized — embedded two-person ops team at a manufacturer; CEO retained us six months to run the operating cadence.
  • ~$10M margin delivered in-year — supply-chain reinvention at a leading OTC consumer-health manufacturer; forecast error cut 47%→39%.
  • Up to $210M GM prize sized — materials management at a $4B industrial-equipment manufacturer; $90M actioned in year one.
  • $150–200M automation opportunity — sized and sequenced across five C-suite-sponsored programs at a global technology OEM.
The full value-creation record
Track 02

Applied AI / Engineering Leadership

For AI companies & enterprises — Head/VP of AI, forward-deployed, CAIO

  • AgentForge — 35K-line production multi-agent OS built solo: 20 agents in 6 teams, 9-tier model router, eval gates, running 4 business units unattended.
  • SightForge — AI sales intelligence deployed at a $2B+ industrial manufacturer: 358 qualified targets, 60% prospecting-time reduction.
  • GenAI strategy, 2023 — foundation-model architecture, RAG, and responsible-AI frameworks for a global commercial-aerospace OEM — before it was consensus.
  • 7 AI processes to production — Azure cloud, full lifecycle, at EY before Bain.
The full technical deep-dive
Where this places

If you're matching this to a mandate.

The seats this profile maps to, and the proof that carries each. Titles written the way the reqs are.

AI Operating Partner

PE portfolio value creation — diligence through ownership. Carried by the realized P&L record and the fund finance playbook deployed with eight CFOs.

Managing Director, Value Creation

Fund or advisory. Carried by 19 Fortune-100-scale engagements, $500M+ sized, $30M+ realized, and steerco-grade delivery.

Chief AI Officer — full-time or fractional

Enterprise AI ownership. Carried by the operating model a top-5 insurer still runs on, plus the governance and eval frameworks I run on my own systems.

Head / VP of AI

Build the function. Carried by practice-building from zero at Bain and a production multi-agent system architected solo.

Forward-Deployed / Applied AI leadership

Embed with customers, ship against their P&L. Carried by AgentForge, SightForge, and a decade of client-embedded delivery.

Altitude

The rooms, not just the work.

  • Built a practice from zero — first hire of Bain's Automation Center of Excellence; built the methodology, IP, and client offerings the practice ran on.
  • Ran the room — teams of 10 as the client's main point of contact with a direct line to Bain partners; three consecutive monthly steering committees at one manufacturer; executive workshops with C-suite sponsors including a Fortune-50 CFO.
  • Both sides of the table — underwrote 1,000+ acquisition targets with my own capital at risk, raised $890K from family offices, and negotiated directly with owners. Investor reps, not just advisor reps.
  • Range — 19 engagements across eight industries: aerospace, healthcare payers and providers, industrials, tech hardware, retail, insurance, and a multi-billion-dollar fund.

“It is rare to see this combination of technical competency and demonstrated knowledge of a client's business.”

— Senior Partner, leading global consultancy
The differentiator

The strongest claim on this page is the one you can watch run.

AgentForge sources acquisitions, builds IC-grade financial models, enriches thousands of leads, and reports every morning — unattended, evaluated, observable. I built it because I run four businesses and refuse to do repeatable work by hand. It also settles the only question that actually separates AI candidates: has this person shipped, and is it still running? This one is. I'll screen-share it.

Bring a P&L problemLeave with a point of viewNo deck. No follow-up sequence.
James Penz
Skin in the game

My companies are the lab. Your P&L is the point.

I've run my own P&L with my own capital at risk — a search fund (Paradosi Partners, $890K raised from family offices) and an AI deployment firm (ClearForge.AI). Everything I built there — the sourcing engine, the operating cadence, the AI that runs it unattended — is the playbook I bring to you, tested on my own money first. Bain · EY · Capgemini · MIT Sloan AI · MSU Economics.