James Olan Hutcheson is President and Founder of the family business consulting firm, ReGENERATION Partners. Mr. Hutcheson has more than 25 years of "hands-on" business management and family business consulting experience. As an advisor to family enterprises, Mr. Hutcheson offers the uncommon balance of experience in both the theoretical and practical applications of family business.

ReGENERATION Partners is devoted exclusively to increasing shareholder value and improving communication in family enterprises. Since founding the firm, Jim has advised more than 80 families across a wide range of industries on how to resolve conflict, plan for and implement succession, increase operation performance, and put appropriate systems and structures in place to prevent problems in the future. Additionally, Jim serves as a business coach through mentoring up and coming leaders.

Jim's family has owned and been actively involved in the daily management of two significant family businesses: Olan Mills, Inc., the world's premier photographic company, and Peerless Woolen Mills, later a division of Burlington Industries.

Jim began his professional career with Olan Mills, Inc. in 1976 and resigned his position as head of Olan Mills studios in 1995 to establish ReGENERATION Partners. During his 19 year career with Olan Mills, he developed and led an organization with 18,000 employees and more than 1,000 locations throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. During his leadership tenure the company grew at an annual rate exceeding 25%.

In addition to degrees in Psychology, Sociology, and a Masters in Business Administration, Jim belongs to several professional and continuing education associations, including The Family Firm Institute where he has served on the board of directors, chair of the annual conference, and has been awarded Fellow status by his peers.

Jim is a frequent speaker at professional, university, and corporate sponsored events, averaging over 20 workshops each year. Additionally, Mr. Hutcheson writes for numerous publications and has been featured in trade, local, national and international media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, Entrepreneur and Inc, Further, Jim is a past editor of Nation's Business, the US Chamber of Commerce magazine, is the family business columnist for Financial Planning and a contributing editor for Family Business Magazine.

Jim is the author of Portraits of Success: 9 Keys To Sustaining Value In Any Business (Dearborn Publishers, August 2002) and is a co-author of The Mentoring Handbook (Family Business Publishing, 2004) and The Conflict Resolution Handbook (Family Business Publishers, 2003).