As a Managing Director at 71 Ventures LLC, Jim Shankle brings to the classroom substantial experience with assembling and leading teams, project management, turnaround management, implementation consulting, corporate finance, and marketing and real estate development.  Much of his project management and development work has been done for international companies in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, India, China and Japan; therefore, he also brings international experience.

When in business school, Jim learned that all business strategy starts and ends with product/market fit and that these should be consolidated in what is generally referred to as marketing.  He combines this knowledge with examples of his varied career experiences and uses them to tailor the sometimes theoretical study to real-world application.

Jim teaches MBA Marketing Strategies, Introductory Marketing and Organizational Behavior for the graduate business program.  He finds the classroom environment to be both stimulating and challenging and appreciates that students are good about staying up with coursework despite often having significant and senior-level daytime work responsibilities as well as family obligations.

An advocate of keeping up with the latest trends, Jim hopes to soon bring social media to the classroom.