John Simmons

 

 

 

ben simmons

John Simmons

John’s career began with the Tampa Bay office of KPMG for 17 years, where he was the assurance partner in charge of the firm’s technology, manufacturing, and retail industry practices. John’s clients had 10+ IPOs and follow-on offerings. His clients included Jabil, Publix Supermarkets, Tropicana, Conventional Munition Systems (Daimler-Benz subsidiary for aeronautical design and munitions), Tires Plus, Pinch-A-Penny pool supply stores, Checkers Restaurants, Polymer International Corporation, and numerous software companies.

John was a senior financial executive at Eckerd Drug Stores (2,800 stores, $10B revenue) responsible for the implementation of Oracle Financials, transition of 100+ member IT department to IBM Global Services and oversight of the related $10+M annual contract, and establishment of the initial data warehouses. Merged with J.C. Penney in 1996. John remained for integration through 1998.

He was President of Quantum Capital Partners, a late-stage venture capital firm, from 1999 to 2012.

As President and COO, John grew and sold (to PEG, Alta Communications, in 2006) a Top 10 internet residential real estate sales company, NewHomes.com, with 400 agents selling $1.2B of homes annually. The company had over 10,000 websites, consistently ranked first-page, top three, in almost all markets, generated 1M+ organic visits and 15,000 leads monthly utilizing an internally developed CRM and email contact system.

John was interim CFO for a $7M software company providing enterprise XML authoring, dynamic publishing and workflow software to financial services, pharmaceutical, and government organizations. Sold to Quark in 2008.

He was a board member for MedQuist ($400+M public subsidiary of Philips Medical), the industry’s largest medical transcription services company, also with clinical documentation workflow software. It was sold in 2008 to CBay (Spheris/Multi-Modal/3M).

John was a past board member for public Technology Research Corporation, design manufacturer of electronic controls and lithium battery technology. Sold to Coleman Cable in 2011.

As investor and then CEO for Lifestyle Family Fitness, a Top 10 fitness chain, oversaw (also as the Acting CIO for 18-person staff) the internal development of: (1) consumer-facing mobile applications for club locators, membership sales, nutritional tracking and menu planning (including shopping lists), fitness videos (produced over 500 internally), other wellness information and vitals tracking (including the use of kiosks), and (2) all back-office systems. Formulated SEO, AdWords, email, and social media campaigns for evants for 55 clubs, 800 group fitness instructors, 500 personal trainers, and 220,000 members. Sold to L.A. Fitness and Lifetime Fitness in 2012.

In 2014, was asked to join the board of public Bonds.com Group, a U.S. electronic bond trading platform, to oversee a sales process. Sold to the London Stock Exchange Group.

John was an advisor to digital marketing company, PowerChord, which provides 20,000+ dealer websites and manages digital product catalogs and promotions, SEM/SEO/AdWords/email and other digital marketing functions and campaigns. Ballast Point Ventures invested $10M in the Company in 2016.

He is a current board member of $1.5B IT flex staffing company, Kforce, with 11,000 staff on assignment. Leading board-level advocate for accelerated innovation initiatives, and cybersecurity.

John, as Growth Advisors, LLC, is currently an advisor for high-growth private companies preparing for, and executing, sales in the $40M to $400M range, typically to private equity firms. He partners with bankers (Raymond James, Houlihan Lokey, Hyde Park, and others) to sell to Kainos Capital, Main Post Partners, Ballast Point Ventures, and others.