James W. Davis

jim davisPresident/Owner

James W. Davis is the retired founder and President of The Davis Group Ltd., an international consulting firm specializing in leadership development and executive coaching. Mr. Davis has nearly 40 years of experience in the public and private sectors. He also serves as a speaker and consultant to organizations on a variety of leadership related issues. Mr. Davis has been recognized by the California State Senate and Assembly, the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, the Westchester/LAX and La Cañada Chambers of Commerce, the Los Angeles Unified School District and numerous other professional, parent and civic organizations. He is the recipient of the 2009/2010 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Graduate School of Education at California State University, Los Angeles.

Mr. Davis is also the co-founder of the Institute for Educational Advancement, a non-profit institute dedicated to serving our nation’s brightest youth.  He currently serves as senior advisor.

Mr. Davis is the author of Sacred Leadership: Leading for the Greatest Good and the founder of Sacred Leadership.org, with a mission to improve leadership in the public, non-profit and service sectors.

Mr. Davis served as the Superintendent of the La Cañada Unified School District in California for five years.  During his tenure as Superintendent, La Cañada was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a Blue-Ribbon school district and was ranked by Newsweek in the top 20 of over 15,000 school districts nationally.  Prior to being promoted to Superintendent, Mr. Davis served as Principal and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction.

Before coming to La Cañada, Mr. Davis served nearly 20 years as a teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District at the middle and high school levels.  He has extensive experience working with ethnically diverse inner-city youth. He held positions as teacher, Dean, Assistant Principal and High School Principal.

Mr. Davis has also worked for Johns Hopkins University, the RAND Corporation and has served as a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles-Extension, California State University, Fullerton and as an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Southern California.  Mr. Davis was a Fellow in the Leadership in Conflict Initiative, Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  The program offered strategic leadership development opportunities for leaders from the public and private sector.

He is a Certified MBTI® Practitioner (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), a Certified Trainer of Trainer for the DiSC® Facilitation System and holds a Certificate in Strategic Foresight.

Mr. Davis is married to sculptor Judeth S. Davis and has three children and four grandchildren.