Chip Pearson

Pearson is a longtime resident of St. Paul, Minnesota. He co-founded JAMF Software (now Jamf) with Zach Halmstad in 2002.^[2] At the time Pearson owned an IT services company^[3] that could use the work being done by Halmstad at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire to streamline information technology administration. Those tools became a product known as Casper, sold by a company formed to support the product called Jamf Software.^[4]

Pearson ran Jamf with Halmstad until 2016, taking $30 Million in Venture capital financing from Summit Partners.^[5] Pearson and Halmstad recruited and hired Dean Hager as the CEO prior to leaving the organization.^[6] In 2017, Jamf was acquired by Vista Equity Partners and the founders departed the company.^[7]

Prior to selling Jamf, the organization generated over $52 million in annual revenue, served more than 5,500 customers,^[8] had nearly 500 employees,^[9] and had just opened its eighth global office. At that point, JAMF had an estimated valuation of $225 million.^[10] Since the sale, Jamf has grown to over 1,500 employees.^[11] Jamf is now traded on NASDAQ under the symbol JAMF.^[12]

Following Jamf, Pearson was involved in the 2017 project DocuMNtary about software companies in Minnesota.^[13] He also runs the Minnesota investment firm Bootstrappers and served on the Board of Directors at software companies like When I Work and Kipsu.^[14]