08/22/2025
You’ve met the other AeL partners. Now let us introduce Jim McLeod. He and Hal have been friends since the early 1990s. Hal was working at a small appraisal firm. Jim was running several businesses, including a data management company and a Christmas tree lot. They wondered what it might be like to run a company together. Then in 2012, when an opportunity arose to buy (CE & media for private investigators), they stopped wondering and launched Storyboard EMP. Not long afterward, they added the Appraiser eLearning vertical and invited Bryan to play along.
Fast forward 13y: We’ve grown LOTS. And Jim has settled into his role as the thousand-foot-view guy who helps us choose what to focus on and what to postpone or forego.
Real leadership is about creating a culture. Jim is a master of this. He never panics or rages, and he works through every emergency—the real ones and the unnecessary, man-made ones—with a smile on his face. He inspires us to be our better selves, but not by means of any top-down hierarchies. In fact, when a subcontractor once told some of us that a decision “has been made at a higher level and you need to get on board,” we laughed like crazy.
That’s not how things work here. We collaborate, we listen, we brainstorm, and we offer constructive feedback. We’re a cohesive team of people who like and respect each other. We have ourselves to thank, to a degree, but we can also lay this effect at Jim’s feet. He has let us do what we each do best—a laissez faire approach most of the time. But when we need him, he’s there. And his fundamental decency, preternatural calm, and good humor are the foundations of our company culture. Jim abides.
Fun fact: Jim and his wife Sarah are the proud parents of six amazing kids.
