Introducing:
James D. Graham, Principal
Northbrook Consulting Group, Inc.

James D. Graham, MBA, has been a professional computer and business management consultant for over 20 years.  He is proud to be a member of the Northbrook Consulting Group, applying the power of Sage BusinessWorks and ACT! to offer a powerful end-to-end strategic business-management solution in a wide range of industries.

Long before he earned his MBA with Distinction from Harvard, Jim grew up in a family-owned business, sweeping floors and doing odd jobs in the summers.  Business was the family dinner conversation.  Later, as a line manager, he achieved in every functional area from sales and marketing to labor negotiations, production materials planning and design, vendor relations, design and supervision of a major plant expansion, re-engineering manufacturing processes, patents, and four major information system conversions, culminating in an on-line management information system that was 10 years ahead of IBM.

Upon leaving the family concern, Jim purchased a franchise in the video-security leasing business.  Jim was rewarded with a large group of clients including Walgreens, True Value Hardware, Ace Hardware, Hyde Park Cooperative Society, and independent retailers, distributors and manufacturers.  In 1978, he bought an Apple II+ and programmed a billing system that he migrated later to the PC platform and ran the leasing business for the next 20 years.

Jim turned professional computer consultant with such clients as Golder-Thoma (Venture Capital), Altheimer & Gray (Law firm, Real Estate Matters Management), and Foote, Cone & Belding, Roy Thomas (Direct Response, accounting system)  as well as small-and medium sized businesses. 

Jim created a national database magazine and founded several software development firms.  He was organizer and president of the first database users group in Chicago.  Jim taught classes in relational database design and programming.

In 1995, when the Web and the Internet were just beginning, Jim developed the first Website for any Harvard Business School Club in the world.  Jim’s Internet planning and development clients included US Robotics, Montgomery Ward, Motorola, Broadwing (subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell), and convention and travel bureaus for San Jose, Atlanta, and Memphis.

Jim served many years as a Vice President of the Harvard Business School Club of Chicago, established the Club’s Entrepreneurs’ Council, and currently serves as the founder and “Champion of Breakfasts” for the Club’s North Shore Special Interest Group.

Jim has been a featured speaker at national computer conferences and became an internationally-recognized authority on the dBASE language.  He has written for PC Magazine and had his own column in a computer programming journal for several years.

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