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Contact info: (415) 901-0631 hornthal(at)cmea(dot)com |
Executive Assistant Contact info: Crystal Columbel (415) 352-1520 ext. 2135 crystal(at)cmea(dot)com |
Joined CMEA: 2005
Years Experience Building Companies: 30
Board Seats: Charles Chocolates, Triporati, Via, Inc.
Non-Profit Board Seats: One Voice Movement, President's Action Network
Deal Starters: Entrepreneurs with the adaptability to change
Non-starters: Lack of respect for competitors and threats
Outside Activities: Mentoring social entrepreneurs trying to make a difference, travel
If building great companies requires uniting diverse groups with conflicting ideas, then Jim Hornthal is well cast. When not fulfilling his duties at CMEA, Jim serves as chairman of the YPO’s Peace Action Network (PAN). Since 2002, PAN has helped create an India-Pakistan forum, an Israeli-Arab forum, and an Arab American Action forum, which he co-founded and co-chairs.
Jim believes in the power of “assembling a bright cohort of passionate and creative minds to tackle seemingly impossible problems.” Now that’s a lesson for entrepreneurs.
As an entrepreneur, Jim is best known as Founder and Chairman of Preview Travel, one of the first online travel agencies. Jim took Preview Travel public in 1997, and later initiated its merger with a division of Sabre Holdings to create Travelocity.com, where he served as Vice Chairman until Travelocity.com was acquired by Sabre in 2002.
Jim is also founder and chairman of Triporati, whose “Vacation Genome Project” is changing how travelers discover their perfect vacation, and serves as the Lester Center Fellow for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Consistent with his ability to bring people together, Jim is a trustee of the One Voice Movement, a grass roots organization that has brought together 650,000 Palestinian and Israeli youth in an effort to amplify the “voice of the mainstream while marginalizing extreme positions on both sides of the conflict.”
Jim is also an active member in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Skoll World Forum. In his free time, Jim enjoys golf, skiing, and long walks on the beach with his wife, Bethany, and their two golden doodles, Snicker and Cleo.