James Harpel
International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Experience
James Harpel invests in and helps build small and medium sized companies, both as management buy-outs and on a venture capital basis. Mr. Harpel is a founder and shareholder of First Reserve Corporation, which acts as the general partner of a series of equity buy-out funds managing in excess of $2.5 billion, which concentrate in the energy and power businesses. He is an active general partner in Palm Beach Capital Partners, LLC, a firm which is engaged in series of management buy-out and real estate transactions. Among the leveraged buy-outs present and past that Mr. Harpel has been actively involved in are Audio America Corporation, Entertainment Resource, Inc., (Chairman), Maverick Tube, Inc., Inter-Mountain Gas, and Congoleum Corp. In addition, Mr. Harpel is involved primarily as an individual in a series of ventures including Clearant, Inc., and Beanstalk Networks -- a company of which he is both a founder and Chairman. Beanstalk is a managed software provider, focusing on mortgage software.
For many years Mr. Harpel was involved in the marketable securities business and was the managing partner of Harpel Advisory Company, Inc., which was both a registered investment adviser and a hedge fund manager, and of Century Capital Corporation, a $2 billion investment adviser. Prior to that time, Mr. Harpel worked for investment banking firms and previously played a major operating role in the turn around of an NYSE-listed manufacturing company.
Mr. Harpel attended Harvard College and graduated with high distinction from Harvard Business School. He is currently a member of the Visiting Committee of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, a director of the Belfer Center and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
