James Shein

Dr. Shein is a former turnaround CEO for several companies and is currently clinical professor of management and strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and part of Kellogg’s Larry and Carol Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice. His areas of expertise include entrepreneurship including small business management, turnaround management, and venture capital and private equity.  He teaches Entrepreneurship & New Venture Formulation and Managing Turnarounds. Prof. Shein is also counsel at McDermott, Will & Emery, where his primary areas of practice include corporate financial and operating restructurings, business startups and acquisitions, and fiduciary duties of officers and directors.

Prior to joining the faculty at Kellogg Prof. Shein spent four years as the president and chief executive officer of R.C. Manufacturing and 10 years prior to that as president and chief executive officer of Northbrook Corporation.

Prof. Shein has chaired programs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on the outlook for the troubled steel, textile and plastics industries, and conducts seminars and workshops on commercial loan structuring and workouts for the Bank Lending Institute and the Banking Law Institute. His work with corporate directors led to his article, “Trying to Match SOX: Dealing with New Challenges and Risks Facing Directors,” published in The Journal of Private Equity, 2005.

A frequent lecturer and author on corporate renewal, he has been highlighted on National Public Radio programs as an authority on restructuring and downsizing. He was elected by his peers as vice president of the Turnaround Management Association, an international organization of 7,000 turnaround, bankruptcy, and restructuring professionals, and is on its international board of directors.

Prof. Shein graduated with an engineering degree from Purdue University and earned an M.B.A. and a doctoral degree in organizational behavior from Indiana University. He later received his juris doctor degree, cum laude, from Loyola University of Chicago, where he was lead articles editor of the Law Journal.