Jim Holden, Founder and CEO of Holden International and author of several business books, will deliver the keynote address at the IIT Stuart School of Business Commencement Ceremony at 1 pm on Saturday, May 17, 2014. The ceremony will be held at De La Salle Institute, 3434 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.

Jim Holden founded Holden International in 1979, and throughout its almost 30-year history, the company has grown to be a world-renowned leader in the sales process improvement field. In 1990, Holden’s company became the first to model sales effectiveness, an achievement that garnered the Ernst & Young Regional Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Service Industry.

Holden is also a globally recognized business author, with titles including Power Base® Selling, World Class Selling, The Selling Fox, and The New Power Base Selling, co-authored with Ryan Kubacki.

Holden also applies his expertise in the parallel area of counterterrorism, and is active with the U.S. Department of Energy as a SPECOPS (Special Operations) instructor focusing on the protection of nuclear weapons and special nuclear material.

He earned a B.S.E.E. with high honors from Northeastern University in Boston, and is a member of the National Engineering Honor Society Tau Beta Pi, and the National Interdisciplinary Honor Society Phi Kappa Phi. He began his sales career in 1974 with Teradyne, a Boston-based high-technology company. Prior to founding Holden International, Holden was Vice President of Sales for Aegis, a third-party distribution company selling computer-based test systems into the manufacturing environment. He was also a founder/director of the First National Bank of Roselle and has served as a director of two other area banks and several early development-stage companies.

Holden and his wife Chris reside in the greater Chicago area. He is active in the community, having founded the Partnership to End Homelessness in Chicago, and is a supporter of many other charities, including cancer research.