James Benedict

James G. Benedict joined Kidd & Company in 2005. Kidd & Company says he oversees human-resource and recruiting work across new and existing investments, a role that fits the firm’s hands-on operating model and its emphasis on management evaluation, augmentation, governance, and senior-team recruitment.

Before Kidd & Company, Benedict worked at Spencer Trask, a venture-capital firm, where he served as Senior Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer. Earlier, he was Managing Director and Co-Head of the E-Commerce and Technology Practice at Diversified Search Companies. He entered Diversified Search through its acquisition of RLM Associates, where he had been Co-Founder and Partner.

Benedict has also served as a consultant to the World Bank and Japan’s Ministry of Finance. His education includes a Ph.D. in International Economics from Columbia University, a Certificate on Monetary and Fiscal Policy from Japan’s Ministry of Finance, and a B.A. from Baylor University.

Outside Kidd & Company, Benedict co-founded Left Tackle Capital in 2018, described by PEAL Capital as an effort to change the demographics and culture of asset management by supporting funds led by women and minorities. PEAL Capital lists him as an advisory-board member and says he serves on the boards of NextPhase Medical Devices, Colerain Family RV, and Young Audiences, and on the advisory boards of MOGUL and Mission: Restore. WorldClinic also lists him as President of WCI, overseeing integration and expansion of the WorldClinic and JobSiteCare platforms.

• Kidd & Company is not positioned as a seed-stage angel investor in its own materials; it describes itself as a family office investor focused on control equity investments.
• The firm states that it is “not a fund”: partners fund firm operating costs and invest their own money in every transaction.
• Kidd & Company focuses on the lower end of the middle market, typically companies with less than $10 million EBITDA.
• The firm’s thesis is strategy-led control investing: it looks for a cohesive investment thesis at the outset, then works with management to improve operations, accelerate growth, improve competitive differentiation, and increase profitability.
• Kidd & Company says it often partners with business owners and founders as the first non-family or non-founder investor, and it generally does not seek to cash out founders entirely.
• The firm’s value-creation work includes management evaluation and augmentation, governance and board recruiting, strategic planning, sales and marketing, finance/CFO support, corporate development, IT systems, and human-capital support.
• Benedict’s own role appears especially relevant to founder-led companies that need senior-team recruiting, leadership assessment, board-building, and organizational scaling.