Forty Under 40: Jim Kane, 36
by January 1, 2011 12:00 am 139 views
Jim Kane’s boyhood fascination with computers morphed into a career that’s put him on the cutting edge of online retailing.
Acumen Brands CEO John James said Kane has grown the company’s technology team from one employee to 20 over the past year.
“Without his technology leadership, Acumen would have failed to grow from zero dollars to $10 million in less than two years,” James said.
After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1996 with a degree in computer systems engineering, Kane spent eight years building websites for the state.
He’s worked for James for about three years, building an ecommerce platform for Acumen’s online stores. Kane is also a part-owner in the company.
“I want to see us build this into a company that people talk about in a good way,” he said, “the kind of company that people say, ‘Wow, that’s cool, we need another company like that around here.’”
When he’s not working, his three children keep him busy. Kane teaches Sunday school, and likes playing computer games and riding motorcycles.
He also enjoys mentoring young computer programmers, and advises all young people “to go for it now, because you will probably never be better situated to succeed wildly, and fail wildly and recover, than you are right now.”