I am delighted to see Utah Business announce Jim Sorenson, alumnus of the David Eccles School of Business, as their CEO of the Year. I knew he had been selected and was waiting for the official announcement to comment. Many know Jim’s business accomplishments, and he deserves the recognition based on these alone. But Jim is also active as a supporter of higher education, and higher education for every student in Utah has benefited from his many contributions.

Jim was the founding donor who helped us jump start the University Venture Fund (UVF), surely one of the boldest initiatives in business higher education in this decade. It is easy to see the vision now. Things looked different in 2001 when UVF was a vision staffed with five undergraduate students who did not know how they were going to raise the funds, let alone invest them. Jim immediately caught the vision for a sustainable education program that would provide an extraordinary experience for the students involved, and this is exactly what UVF has become. With $18.3 million in the Fund, our students are partnering with over 40 national venture capital funds, doing some of the best due diligence in Utah, which is what keeps our partners coming back, and achieving extraordinary returns for students and investors. Jim serves on the Board of UVF along with several other community members, and he continues in the role of “holder of the vision.” The success of UVF is a challenge in its own right, and all the Board members, including me, look to Jim as the person who keeps us focused on what the purpose of the fund is: to educate students while making money for our investors.

Jim serves on the advisory board for the Lassonde New Venture Development Center, a program at the University of Utah that brings together science, engineering, and business students to work with university researchers on the commercialization of new technologies. This is tough work, because it is technology looking for markets, and it is not easy to find the right markets and understand how new technologies can create commercial value. This is what business innovation is all about, and very few are good at it. The contributions of an astute businessman like Jim Sorenson are hugely valuable to the student teams associated with the Lassonde Center, both in giving them direction and helping them ask the right questions of the technology and the business.

Given the experience with the Lassonde New Venture Development Center, Jim is partnering with the David Eccles School on a new program that will be announced this spring. This is an exciting development for the University and the Utah business community, but what is most exciting is the innovative concept for providing an educational experience that will benefit students across the universities in the entire state. Jim Sorenson understands the value for business that comes from investing in Utah’s most precious natural resource: our children. Once again, he is providing the risk capital to make a vision of what is possible a reality. We will be announcing this program soon, and I hope to provide details in a future blog.

Jim also serves on the David Eccles School of Business National Advisory Board along with about 60 other friends and alumni. The Board’s focus is providing strategic insight and working to ensure the David Eccles School continues to be one of the world’s best business schools. While the School has a record of achievement and recognition that places it consistently in the ranks of the World’s Best Business Schools as evaluated by publications like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, it takes constant innovation and attention to delivery to sustain this ranking. The School’s National Advisory Board makes sure we keep our edge and keep striving to improve our programs every day.

Jim Sorenson is a MVP for the David Eccles School of Business and for higher education in Utah. He dedicates a great deal of time to serving Utah’s students and has served as a visionary investor in supporting new programs that are establishing Utah as an innovator in higher education. Does this matter? Think about national centers of excellence in higher education, which include Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, LA, and San Diego. Exciting things happening in these economies? The answer is obvious. Jim Sorenson is a MVP in my book because he is investing in Utah’s future, and he understands innovative higher education is the secret to his success and Utah’s success.