James Penz

I size the EBITDA impact, design the strategy, and build the AI systems that deliver it. One person, all three. $500M+ sized, $30M+ realized, and a production multi-agent system running four businesses.

james@clearforge.ai
jamespenz.com · linkedin.com/in/jamespenz
Detroit

2025–

ClearForge.AI

Founder & CEO. AI deployment, mid-market & enterprise

· Built the go-to-market engine at a $4B industrial manufacturing company: market scan to 358 qualified targets, 5 new segments, 119 account playbooks across 9 lanes, 60% prospecting-time reduction, refreshed on a fully automated weekly cycle.
· Architected AgentForge solo: 35,000-line production multi-agent OS. 20 agents, 9-tier router, eval gates, running four business units unattended.

2023–

Paradosi Partners

Co-founder & CEO, search fund, lower-middle-market industrial

· Family-office backed with committed capital; built the origination, underwriting, and diligence systems end to end.
· Underwrote 1,000+ targets with IC-grade LBO models I built; negotiated directly with owners; one acquisition under LOI (led full buy-side diligence and a 68-slide investment memorandum), a second selected to the final two.

2019–23

Bain & Company

Generalist Senior Manager; recruited as first working member to launch and build the Vector AI Automation practice

· Recruited to launch the Vector AI Automation practice as its first working member; built it while running full generalist cases, teams of 10, main client contact. 19 Fortune-100-scale engagements, 8 industries; $500M+ quantified P&L impact.
· Delivered $20M in realized savings as half of a two-person team embedded with the CEO; retained six months to train the operating team and hand over the cadence.
· ~$10M margin delivered in-year at an OTC consumer-health manufacturer; forecast error 47%→39% realized; $29–70M simplification recommendations.
· Led materials-management recovery at a $4B equipment manufacturer: sized up to $210M gross margin, $90M actioned year one, validated with nineteen client operators across five plants.
· Built the board-level automation program at a global technology OEM: five C-suite-sponsored charters, $150–200M two-year target, self-funding first wave.
· Authored the automation operating model a top-5 U.S. health insurer still runs on; 75% cycle-time reduction across three engagements.
· Portfolio finance playbook deployed with 8 CFOs of a multi-billion-dollar fund; 2023 GenAI strategy for a global aerospace OEM.

2016–19

EY

Performance Improvement. AI & automation

· Designed, built, and deployed 7 AI-enabled processes to Azure production at a $4B manufacturer. 40% FTE-capacity lift, $4M recovered revenue.

2013–16

Capgemini

Financial-services technology transformation

· Four end-to-end platform implementations for Fortune 500 insurers, $500M+ annual premium volume.

MIT Sloan AI exec ed · MSU Economics · AWS CCP · Clients blinded per confidentiality; realized vs sized labeled · References on request