Jim Schultz is an executive coach based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with more than 10,000 hours coaching CEOs and business owners across industries. Before coaching, he spent 36 years as founder and CEO of Applied Educational Systems (AES), a digital curriculum company serving career and technical education programs nationwide, which he sold to a private equity partner in 2022. Under his leadership, AES made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies five years running, from 2018 through 2022, and was recognized as a Best Place to Work. Building AES from a startup through scaling and exit gave Jim direct experience with the operational, financial, and governance demands of a growing company, including succession planning, capital decisions, hiring senior leaders, and protecting culture through periods of change. 

Jim was elected by employee shareholders to the Board of Directors of Kleinschmidt Associates, a 100% employee-owned consulting firm. He brings to that work more than eleven years on the Board of Directors of Cargas Systems, a Lancaster-based, 100% employee-owned software company. During his Cargas tenure, the board was named a Private Company Board of the Year for 2023 by MLR Media and Directors & Boards, recognized at the Private Company Governance Summit in Washington, D.C., for governance excellence on behalf of owners, shareholders, employees, and the broader community. That experience shaped how Jim thinks about board work at an employee-owned firm: independence is worth protecting, employee-owners deserve direct fiduciary advocacy, and the best boards ask better questions before they offer better answers. 

Jim’s daily work coaching CEOs gives him an unusual vantage point on the dynamics between a board and its executive team. He’s comfortable leading hard conversations, holding leaders accountable with care, and making sure the quietest voice in the room gets heard. He has served on multiple for-profit and non-profit boards, including Demme Learning and several community organizations, and was named Lancaster Chamber’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019. 

Jim earned his B.S. in Marketing from Saint Joseph’s University. He and his wife, Tracy, live in Lancaster County and have five adult children and four grandchildren.