At 3:22 in the morning, Jim Madden’s boat had finished racing. His account of the 2009 Newport to Ensenada race recorded the wind, the timing, the crew, and the margin over another J/125: 28 minutes. Stark Raving Mad IV had won its class. Somewhere between the start and the finish, seven people had also managed grilled swordfish and three bottles of wine.
This is a more useful introduction to Madden than a list of board appointments. His account gives the result alongside the people and provisions that helped him get there. Even his race reports leave room for dinner.
His business career has involved a larger change of position. Madden built and ran Exult, the human-resources outsourcing company. He later became an investor, helping other executives grow their businesses. Today he shares the leadership of Carrick Capital Partners with Marc McMorris. The question running through that career is surprisingly personal: once you know how to steer, when should you help someone else do it?
A boat owner’s education
Madden grew up sailing in Oyster Bay, New York. His early boats included a Blue Jay and a Laser, followed by a C&C 30 and a Ranger 33. That childhood interest reached into his education: he attended the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture before earning degrees in finance and geology at Southern Methodist University.
There was a course correction along the way. He recalled an instructor asking whether he wanted to design a boat or own one. Madden preferred ownership. The instructor suggested business. It was career advice with an unusually concrete deliverable.
He eventually entered consulting and technology services. His early employers included Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, and SHL Systemhouse. Those roles placed him close to the work companies were beginning to entrust to outside specialists. Software mattered, but so did the machinery around it: sales, implementation, and the recurring obligation to deliver.
The internet, applied to payday
Exult began in 1998, when using the internet to run a business process was still a proposition that needed explaining. Its customers were large corporations. Its work included the routines behind employment: payroll, administration, and other HR functions that needed to keep running whether or not anyone found them exciting.
The appeal was practical. A company could hand that work to a specialist and seek better efficiency. Exult had backing from General Atlantic. Madden supplied experience in outsourcing and a business aimed at the ordinary, repetitive operations beneath the corporate org chart.
The early contracts were substantial. BP agreed to a five-year, $600 million arrangement. Bank of America followed with a ten-year, $1.1 billion contract. Those figures describe commitments across years, rather than revenue arriving all at once. They also convey the scale of the promises Exult had to keep.
Exult founded
Initial public offering
Merger with Hewitt
Exult went public in June 2000. Its subsequent public filings show how capital from private investors and the public markets supported the business. Becoming listed also meant the company’s work acquired a second audience, one watching its share price as well as its service delivery.
The two audiences did not always react together. In early 2002, Exult’s stock fell 36 percent following news that Bank of America was selling part of its holding. Madden had just reported good quarterly results. A growing business could still provide its chief executive with a disagreeable morning.
By 2004, Exult and Hewitt had agreed to combine. The proposed arrangement brought together HR outsourcing and consulting capabilities, including payroll, information systems, recruiting, and learning. Madden’s announced responsibilities covered integration, transition, and business development. Selling a company did not instantly remove the work of making its promises fit a larger organization.
The coach chooses a different seat
The next part of Madden’s career moved closer to the people supplying capital. He became a special advisor to General Atlantic and later a partner at Accretive, where he worked from 2007 to 2011. He had built a company with an investor behind him. Now he could bring that experience to the other side of the relationship.
“I’d rather be the coach or investor than the guy on the field.”
Jim Madden, 2018
That preference has a useful qualification. Madden is still a co-CEO, this time of an investment firm. What changed was his relationship to the businesses being built: he could support their leaders without personally running each company’s operations.
He and McMorris launched Carrick in 2012. Their opportunity lay among technology businesses whose financing needs could be too small for much larger investment firms. A promising company might have customers and substantial revenue while still needing help with the next stage.
The partners also shared an interest in sailing. Carrick takes its name from the timbers at the heart of a sailing ship that support its anchoring system. For a firm offering capital and operating support, it is an apt piece of nautical vocabulary. It has the additional virtue of being considerably more restrained than Stark Raving Mad.
Growth has to survive the working week
Carrick concentrates on software, SaaS, transaction processing, and technology-enabled services. Its stated investment criteria include companies with $20 million to $100 million in revenue and current or near profitability. This places its work in businesses that have already moved beyond an idea and a slide deck.
Its approach gives management specific jobs to tackle. Sales strategy includes explaining a customer’s return on investment and finding new channels. Market positioning means bringing an offering closer to customer needs. Scaling operations includes improving productivity and the user experience.
The list is refreshingly concerned with Monday morning. Money can finance an expansion; someone still has to decide how the larger business will sell, serve, and function. Madden’s background gives him a reason to stay interested in that second part.
The firm’s governance work extends into investment decisions too. In their joint letter accompanying Carrick’s 2024 ESG report, Madden and McMorris described evaluating material environmental, social, and governance factors during diligence and continuing that work while owning an investment. Their stated concerns included efficiency, legal exposure, and reputational risk. These are further obligations attached to building a business that can last.
A famous name should earn its chair
Madden’s writing about boards is unusually interested in what a director will actually do. He advises executives to investigate a candidate’s previous board work, understand their knowledge of the industry, and establish the commitment expected before making the appointment. Familiarity on a conference program is a poor substitute for usefulness in a difficult meeting.
His short warning is memorable: “Don’t get star struck.” Celebrity can make an executive reluctant to ask ordinary questions. A board member who opens doors, understands customers, and participates actively has a clearer purpose than one whose name merely improves a presentation.
Madden himself chairs Genpact’s board and has been a director there since 2005. He also serves on the boards of DailyPay, Everspring, Flatiron School, LegalSifter, OnPay, and Veritas Prime. The range reaches from pay and payroll to education and legal software.
He has also put a harder question to chief executives: “Am I still the best person to run this company?” In his leadership writing, he recommends asking it every quarter. It is an uncomfortable appointment to put in one’s own calendar.
His other concerns include dealing promptly with bad news, recruiting complementary skills, and appointing a dedicated sales leader. Growth can make the founder’s old habits expensive. Someone who once did everything may need to become better at deciding who does what.
The payroll thread, and a newer security bet
Payroll continues to appear in Madden’s work. In January 2025, OnPay announced more than $100 million in financing, combining a $63 million Series B led by Carrick with a debt facility. OnPay serves small and medium-sized businesses, taking the operating problem to a different customer base from Exult’s corporate clients.
In October 2025, Carrick announced a $31.5 million minority investment in Veritas Prime. Its business combines SAP-related implementation, support, and managed payroll services. Madden’s place on its board links his earlier experience to a business addressing another version of the same practical challenge: keeping systems and services working together.
The firm’s recent work also reaches further afield. On August 31, 2026, Carrick announced a Saviynt continuation vehicle with approximately $600 million in commitments and $255 million of new investment in the identity-security company. Existing investors could either continue holding their investment through the new vehicle or take liquidity.
That mechanism gives a long-running partnership another chapter. Identity security now includes governing access for people, non-human identities, and AI agents. The language would have sounded unfamiliar when Exult began. The investor’s operating questions remain recognizable: who are the customers, what do they need, and can the company deliver as demand grows?
The crew still matters
Madden has raced the Stark Raving Mad series since 2000. The team’s recorded wins include Key West Race Week in 2008 and 2010 and the Rolex Swan Cup in 2013. Different boats, different courses, and a familiar name have given the pastime a substantial competitive history.
In a 2021 sailing podcast, he discussed the racing program, his search for a race boat, and crew traditions. The discussion covered the shared enterprise behind the entries on a race calendar.
That is what makes the Ensenada report linger. Madden remembered the people aboard, the changing conditions, and the meal. He also recorded the finish precisely. A result and an enjoyable journey can occupy the same account. After all the companies and boardrooms, there is something reassuringly human about an investor who leaves space in a race report for the swordfish.