Before all of this
I've been building peer communities since long before it was a category
From 2013 to 2019, I founded and ran Digital Transformation Thought Leaders and its subgroup Mobile Thought Leaders — a global peer network that grew to over 3,000 professionals, meeting in person across 50 cities, with hundreds of gatherings, webinars, and peer research projects along the way. It's the same instinct behind everything I've built since: put the right people in a room together on a real cadence, and the value takes care of itself.
Before any of that, I trained as an electrical engineer at the University of Michigan (Cooley Award, twice), picked up a New Ventures certificate at Wharton, and spent years in professional audio and media production — work that touched Grammy, Oscar, and Emmy-winning projects, and taught me most of what I know about what it actually takes to get a room of talented people rowing in the same direction.
"I have had the absolute pleasure of working with Jim Haviland during my entire tenure at Vox Mobile, over 5 years. He was one of those rare individuals that could comfortably discuss and develop a long-term strategy with C-level executives. Frankly, he is like a mentor to me and helped guide my own shift from tactical and technical skills to more of a strategic and long-term capability. His efforts in building out the Mobile Thought Leaders community is extraordinary and almost entirely driven by his own efforts and initiatives."
— Harjot Sidhu, Senior Technical Architect, Insight"Jim brought a solid background in professional Audio and great ears to our technical engineering group. His commitment to the task at hand and his excellent work added to Universal having what I still believe was the best tech staff in Chicago at the time."
— Greg Rankin, Technologist/Elucidator, Tech Tonic LLC
