James Drage
Drage & Co.
Vancouver, Canada
About
James is first and foremost an active venture capital investor. Since 2005 he has run a private venture capital equity fund and since 2015 a large LP backed venture debt fund. He has made over 40 direct investments totaling over $ 60 Million and been part of over $ 300 Million in capital raises. Prior to this he worked in M&A and founded 3 start-ups that successfully exited – in digital advertising, electronic publishing, and real estate.
Although involved in informal coaching since 1991- helping business owners increase the exit value of their businesses as a broker through “consulting, development and brokerage” and “selling to strategics” plus following an “Eyes in, hands in” investment style the power of formal coaching and especially coaching based on a system only became apparent after getting a personal coach in 2013. After this business growth moved from linear to exponential and he had the thought “if only I had gotten a coach sooner” and he now has 2 coaches.
The motivation to get a coach came after a portfolio company sale (which would have resulted in a large win) fell apart after the acquirer met with the leadership team and found that although the technology and market risks were covered there was no alignment among the team. They “had a strategy but weren’t capable of developing one and executing it” was a comment made – which merits pondering and thinking about.
A desire to help portfolio companies, in the same way, led to taking training from numerous coaching before settling on Scaling Up as the best foundational system for growth companies. Since then he has continued to add to his toolkit and enjoys sharing multiple systems, tools, and methodologies with founders, CEO’s and leadership teams. The goal is to be an occasional outside set of eyes with access to some of the best thought leaders and someone to hold them accountable - while they grow their businesses on the way to large monetization events AND doing so while having a positive impact and enjoying the journey.
Professional Highlights
Certified Gazelles / Scaling Up Coach
Arbinger Institute Certified Facilitator for Outward Leadership, Outward Performance and Outward Inclusion
Certified ExO Sprint Coach
Certified Trust Edge Partner
Five Dysfunctions of a Team Facilitator
Master's in Coaching and Consulting for Change (EMCCC) from INSEAD
Currently pursuing a late-life doctorate in Systems Psychodynamics at the Tavistock (London, UK) focused on Consultation and the Organization
Cross-cultural experience in the Middle East, Europe, and North America
Venture Capital and investor experience
Started, grew and sold multiple businesses - before, during and after the Dot Com boom
Former YEO now YPO member
Personal Highlights
Based in both Vancouver and Halifax, Canada
+ Married to Lis, a RIM Institute transformation coach and trainer
+ 5 children
+ Adventure travel and Theatre and Broadway fan
Coaching Regions
US - West
Canada - Atlantic Region
Canada - Central Canada
Canada - Prairie Provinces
Canada - North
Canada - West Coast
Middle East
Industry of Expertise
Other
“James came to our business at the ideal time. We have a new company, a clean slate to do as we pleased and a humbleness borne of hard work with insufficient payoff. We were ready to conquer the world and be students at the same time. I asked my team to raise a hand if they had ever been part of a fast growth company that had no dysfunction had excellent management and was a happy place to work. No hands raised. I said well let’s try. James entered our environment at that moment. When I look back we had deep domain expertise, an excellent model and business plan but we were green, very green when it came to how to structure the business in order to scale well. With James’ help, we have created an organization that is scaling, and well structured. We follow what we call AAA – alignment, autonomy, and accountability. Those words are great but without the scaling structure, we have developed in large part due to James coaching we would never have brought AAA to life in a meaningful and sustainable way. I am grateful to James for his skills, knowledge and personal commitment to our success. His advice has had an invaluable impact on our structure and the speed with which we have put it in place.”
— Paul Morford, LLB, CEO | Agora Dealer Services (Holding) Corp.