James Goulka is Managing Director of Arizona Tech Investors (ATI).
ATI is comprised of about 90 men and women who invest their own resources in disruptive startups in information technology and life sciences. Since its inception in 2007, ATI members have invested, directly, through entities and through three funds, in 56 companies, 46 of which are Arizona-based.
Goulka previously served as CEO of software companies NetSelector Inc (sold to Apple, Inc), Jump-Start Solutions, and bid4real.com. Additionally, he was CEO of the National Technology Transfer Center, which commercialized IP developed in all 10 NASA labs and parts of the Department of Defense; the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, and Taliesin Preservation, Inc.; and served as COO and CFO of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. and its world-wide subsidiaries. At Britannica, Goulka was responsible for digitizing the product line. Goulka began his career in corporate finance and private equity at JP Morgan Chase and Citibank.
Goulka is a governing or advisory board member of several ATI portfolio companies. Previously he was Chairman of Merriam-Webster Dictionaries and most of Britannica’s world-wide subsidiaries, and a board member of various early stage companies. His not-for-profit board involvement included Steppenwolf Theater Company, Chicago Shakespeare, the Dallas Zoological Society, and the Associate Board of the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, as well as multiple social service boards. He has also served on elected school and township boards.
Goulka holds two degrees from Yale.