James J O’Connor Jr

Jim O'Connor is the Managing Director of MVC Capital in Chicago. He also founded Early Stage Accelerator (ESA) for Motorola and became its Vice President in 2003. In that role he was responsible for assessing new technologies within Motorolas Research and Development Labs and business divisions and creating new businesses through their internal venture capital arm. Prior to founding ESA, Jim was the Managing Director of Motorola Ventures, which he founded in 1999 following a year of service in the U.S. government as a White House Fellow assigned to Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. During this fellowship, he was responsible for coordinating strategies on electronic commerce and community development policy, as well as bank regulation. Prior to this, Jim worked as a Management Consultant with the global management consultancy A.T. Kearney of Chicago. Jim is currently co-chair of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, and is the founder of the Field Associates and the Lyric Opera Auxiliary Board. He has been a Leadership Fellow in both the U.S.-Japan Foundation and Leadership Greater Chicago. Jim received his BA and JD from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He is a member of the 2004 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.