Jim Fitzgerald

Jim Fitzgerald is a USA TODAY best-selling author who has spent thirty-five years building businesses and working alongside the people who run them. He grew up in a housing project outside Boston and started earning at eleven, carrying golf bags at the public course for whatever a man felt like handing over at the end of eighteen holes. He has since founded four companies, most notably Taradel, a direct mail and digital marketing platform that earned a place on the Inc. list of America's 5,000 fastest-growing private companies for twelve consecutive years — a distinction shared by only 35 other companies nationwide at the time. Over two decades he sat with thousands of owners and watched the same fixable mistakes hold them back again and again. The Million Dollar Hurdle is the result.

Today Jim is co-founder and CEO of Paycile, a financial technology company building AI-driven reconciliation, reporting, and cash-flow forecasting for the businesses that move money every day. He also leads Fitzgerald Growth Partners, the advisory practice behind this book. He lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife, Sandy.