2008 40 Under Forty: Jim Sullivan

Jim Sullivan

Age: 35

Title: CEO

Company: JCSI

Company location: Westborough

Residence: North Grafton

Career highlights:

Currently I head up a corporate recruitment and consulting organization. There were just two of us when we started eight years ago, but we are now at 67 employees. I got into recruiting in 1994 when I was a junior in college. It came naturally to me, so I stayed with it after graduation. From there I worked for several other companies as a corporate recruiter and as a contractor. Eventually I decided to take all of my experiences and form a company that took the best from everything I learned. That’s how JCSI was born.

Community involvement:

As a father, the first thing I want to do is make sure that my four daughters see my support. So that’s why I have volunteered as a coach for their T-ball, soccer, and lacrosse teams. I’m also active in other projects such as our company’s Great Golf Day fundraiser for juvenile diabetes research. For the most part, seeing kids having the opportunity to be kids motivates my volunteering choices. We also support volunteerism among our employees.

Biggest professional success:

After 9/11, the drop in the economy caused us to go through a layoff. That was a difficult thing to do in a really difficult time. But we stayed afloat as a company. Obviously we didn’t want to go through that again, so we developed our current business model which is designed to work in an up and down economy.

Dream job:

I’d really like to own and manage the Red Sox.

Businessperson you admire most:

I admire Gary Erickson Founder of CLIF Bars. Erickson chose to walk away from a $120 million deal from Mars Inc. because he felt that by going public, the company’s focus would turn to money and lose the value he placed on putting people first.

If you weren’t doing the job you’re doing now, what would you do?

Given that I like solving business problems, I’d probably be an HR director or a strategic business partner in a mid-sized company. I really like it when we can put our heads together and come up with a solution by making the best use of what we have available.

Favorite movie:

“The Usual Suspects” with Kevin Spacey is way up there.