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As Co-founder and Managing Director of The Helixx Group, a merchant bank for high impact entrepreneurs based in Indianapolis, Jim Van Eerden provides direction to the firm's agency services, venture-building strategies, and M&A/alliance activities.

Jim is known for his acumen as a branding positioning and business development strategist, launching several pioneering businesses that have helped to re-shape the industry segments in which those companies have operated. In his previous employment, his visionary instincts earned him strategic engagements with senior executives from industry titans including USA TODAY, Southwest Airlines, Pearson Education, and others. His commentary has appeared in eWeek, USA TODAY, Education Week, the Washington Post, and other publications.

Jim also serves as Board Chairman for The H2O Africa Foundation (a $6 million clean water initiative), and as a founding Board Director for BDA Foundation (a non-profit effort to advance biotechnology for sustainable development in Africa), Open Finance Network (a financial services platform servicing more than $14 billion of assets under administration), Wilberforce Forum (Chuck Colson's worldview ministry), and The ZYOZY Foundation (the “Newman’s Own” brand for the up-and-coming generation). He has also served as a member of the Board of Governors for Opportunity International, the world's largest faith-based micro-lending agency with a $250 million micro-loan portfolio. He originated The Centurions Fellowship, is a co-founder of The Giftedness Institute, and is Chief Editor for LIFE(n) Media.

Prior to co-founding The Helixx Group, Jim co-founded and served as CEO of a national technology consulting firm. The company grew to include about 150 employees across its various subsidiary operating units, before a merger prompted Jim's exit from the company. During that same time period, Jim also co-founded and coordinated alliance development for the country's leading K-12 Internet community services provider (www.edgate.com).

Jim had previously worked with a brand management company that specialized in global sports sponsorships. Through engagements with Coca-Cola, M&M/Mars and American Airlines, Jim coordinated numerous national brand marketing programs. He also served as lead counsel in an engagement for the 1994 World Cup Organizing Committee, was retained to develop concepts for the Torch Run element of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, and helped launch a Fourth of July tradition in the wake of 9.11 known as "The American Tribute," which involved a national media campaign that he coordinated with The White House and other partners.

Jim graduated from a Jesuit-run high school in Milwaukee, and then attended Grove City College, where he was named a Presidential Scholar. He has completed graduate study programs at Stanford University and Oxford University (St. Peter's College), has an MA in philosophy, an MBA from Wake Forest University and is presently a candidate for a doctoral degree in Global Education, with an emphasis in Lifework Studies. He and his wife Rachel have ten children and live on a family homestead in Stokesdale, North Carolina.

05 January 2009