Jim Ranton
Founder & Principal
Jim Ranton is a results-driven senior advisor. He has a successful track record improving sales and profit performance for both emerging and established companies across a range of industries. He advises organizations in developing and implementing talent strategies that align with desired outcomes. His areas of expertise include organization performance planning, talent management, compensation design, labor relations strategy and acquisition integration. He is recognized for his ability to partner with the CEO and his or her executive team to support major growth initiatives and develop a high performance, metrics-based system and culture. He has worked for large (PepsiCo, Citigroup, United Technologies), mid-size (Citizens Utilities, New York Racing Association) and small growth companies (Surescripts).
Prior to forming Phenix Advisors, Jim was the Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer for the New York Racing Association (NYRA), one of the nation’s leading thoroughbred horse racing organizations. On joining NYRA in 2015, Jim provided leadership in transitioning the organization to a more performance-based and inclusive culture. Working across a patchwork of more than 20 unions, he made significant improvements in labor relations, leading to more than $1 million in annual cost savings. The operating income target was surpassed in each of the years from 2015 to 2018.
Prior to NYRA, Jim was the Senior Vice President & Chief People Officer for Surescripts, a leader in healthcare information technology. At Surescripts, Jim designed and implemented a performance management process that aligned corporate, functional, and individual performance objectives, which was a major contributing factor to the organization exceeding revenue and profit objectives, by an average of 20 percent, from 2010 to 2013.
As Senior Vice President of Human Resources for the Guardian Life Insurance Company, Jim implemented new executive assessment, development, and succession programs that improved leadership performance. Pre-tax operating income grew 14 percent to $1 Billion in two years.
Prior to that role, as Senior Human Resources Officer at Citigroup, Jim directed planning and implementation of the human resources acquisition plan for California Federal Bank. Project targets where met on time within all financial parameters. Earlier, in his career, Jim served as the Vice President of Human Resources for Citizens Utilities (now Frontier Communications) and held several roles of increasing management responsibility at Carrier Corporation and PepsiCo.
Jim received a BS degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. In addition, he earned an MBA from the International Management Center at ESC Rouen in France, and a MS degree from the Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue University.