The Digital Family Outstanding Achievement Honor is bestowed annually upon a person whose leadership, technical innovation, business acumen and community involvement have made a significant impact on Southern California's digital media community. Selected by members of the Digital Family community, the Outstanding Achievement Honor recognizes those exceptional individuals whose achievements have impacted our local economy, advanced our community and inspired our collective vision for what is possible in the greater technology and business communities.

Biography

Jim Jonassen, Chairmen, Micro J Systems
Jim Jonassen has been named three times to the Los Angeles Business Journal's Top 25 People in High Technology. The secret to his success in his twenty-five years as a recruiter in the California market is that Jim has been a successful entrepreneur. He doesn't just talk the talk - he has walked in his clients' shoes. In addition to having personally led over 500 searches in his career, he also founded and built two successful software companies, leading one through acquisition and IPO, and the other to ongoing profitability.

After founding the company in 1986 and serving as CEO until 1993, he is now chairman of Micro J Systems, a developer of software solutions for the search and staffing industry that is profitably operated today and has 2,000 staffing firms and HR organizations as customers. Later, Jim co-founded and served as CEO of PeopleMover, Inc., a VC-backed enterprise software company delivering professional services automation (PSA) software and solutions to firms including CSC, Robert Half Intl., Modis, Ernst & Young, and BEA Systems. PeopleMover merged with Opus360 (now a part of Artemis Intl. Solutions Corp.) in early 2000, and together they went public in April of that year. As testimony to the respect and trust granted Jim by the industry's entrepreneurs and talent alike, the Software Council of Southern California (now the Technology Council of Southern California) named Jim Jonassen its 1999 Software Entrepreneur of the Year and he has been listed among the Top 25 People in High Technology three times by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

As an executive recruiter, Jim co-founded and led Riviera Partners, a Palo Alto - based search and placement firm from 2001 through 2006. From 1991 to 1997, he founded and led Larkin Associates, a new media search firm with offices in Santa Monica and San Francisco. Earlier, Jim was a founding Talent Scout for America Online's AOL Greenhouse incubator and venture fund.

Jim has been a builder not only of products, companies, and teams, but also of community. The latest example of this is ThursdayNights, which is developing a CxO and VC network and social media hub across the region. In 1997, Jim co-founded the Digital Coast Roundtable along with then - L.A. mayor Richard Riordan as a technology leadership group promoting Los Angeles as a leading center for Internet and emerging technology companies. In 1992, he launched LAwNMoweR - the Los Angeles New Media Roundtable to promote the emerging industry.

Jim's community activities extend beyond business networking. He has been an active Big Brother since 1992, and is a longstanding member of the Board of the Santa Monica and Cathedral City Boys & Girls Clubs. Jim drove the initial development of and led the fundraising for the Technology Media Center initiatives which are now being built out in seventeen club branches from Malibu to Playa del Rey. You may also find Jim giving back to students through his ongoing lectures at USC's Entrepreneur Program at the Marshall School of Business, at UCLA's Anderson MBA School's InfoTech program, or at LARTA University.

Jim holds a BA in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana and also attended Spain's Universitat de Barcelona.

Past DFR award recipients have included Nolan Bushnell, Scott Painter, William Quigley, Steven Hughes, Mark Turk and Eric Pulier.