James Lee Sorenson

A world-renowned entrepreneur, business leader and societal innovator, James Lee Sorenson has built highly successful companies in industries ranging from technology and life sciences to real estate and private equity investment. Jim enjoys combining innovative and worthwhile ideas with talented management teams to produce growing new enterprises. This successful combination has produced thousands of new jobs and vibrant companies. Throughout his career, Jim has helped establish highly impactful programs and organizations that improve the lives of the working poor, build regional business communities and train the next generation of entrepreneurial and investment leaders. In his philanthropic endeavors, Jim prefers self-sustaining charitable enterprises that can lift and empower large numbers of people. He actively donates time, money and energy to institutions that help individuals in poverty-stricken areas become self-sufficient.

Jim is a recognized leader in impact investing and provided the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah with a $13 million gift in 2013 to create the James Lee Sorenson Global Impact Investing Center (SGII Center). The Center seeks to emulate Jim’s philanthropic and business endeavors by providing students with real-world experience with social entrepreneurs and interaction with foundations and investors to facilitate impact investing to address a broad range of societal problems. In addition, Jim is the chairman of Village Capital, a nonprofit organization that uses the power of peer support to build enterprises that change the world.

Jim did not begin his career at the top, and managed several successful business enterprises while in college, He has helped develop several new industry categories, including digital compression software that played a role in ushering in the online video revolution at Sorenson Media, and video relay services that transformed opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing individuals at Sorenson Communications. In 2005, Sorenson Communications was acquired in the most lucrative private equity deal in Utah history up to that time, and one of the nation’s largest deals of the year. Early in his real estate experience, Jim developed the 120-acre Sorenson Research Park in the early 1980s. Today, he leads an investment group developing market-leading commercial and residential projects, including The Pointe, a mixed-used business park in Draper, Utah. In 2009, Jim led a team that acquired a $701 million structured portfolio of commercial real estate loans from the FDIC.

Jim co-founded Sorenson Capital, Utah’s leading mid-market private equity firm, which has raised more than $650 million to invest in U.S. companies. In 2001, Jim provided the seed money for the University Venture Fund (UVF) at University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business. Now the world’s largest student-run educational investment fund, UVF provides unrivaled hands-on experience in venture capital and entrepreneurship for students. In addition, Jim served as chairman of the board of MediConnect Global, a leader in medical record retrieval that sold to Verisk Analytics in 2012 for over $370 million.

Jim has served on many community service boards, including Mission Markets, University Venture Fund, Art Works for Kids, Gallaudet University, the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, the Utah Sports Commission and the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development.