Jonathan Virginia, Inc

Abstract

This case is appropriate for teaching in business management and strategy courses. At issue in this case is how to institutionalize a business beyond what the entrepreneur has started. This founder built a very profitable business and is responsible for all its critical business functions. After more than 20 years will he be able to build a management team? Can he scale his business to the next level? Excerpt UVA-ENT-0135 October 21, 2009 Jonathan Virginia, Inc. Jonathan Virginia, Inc. (JVI), a premier designer and manufacturer of luxury packaging, used fine woods, metals, fabrics, and papers from around the world. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, this global company sourced materials worldwide, manufactured with partners in China, and sold products to global companies that distributed chocolate, watches, spirits, humidors, cigars, coffee and teas, and coins for collectors to the U.S. and British mints. JVI was founded by Jon Fink, who at the age of 17 in his hometown of Roanoke, Virginia, had met an elderly fine-guitar maker who taught Fink his craft. Fink learned that being an experienced artisan required patience, time, and a love for the materials. Fink enrolled in the University of Virginia, where he majored in religion, but in his spare time, he continued to learn how to make fine guitars. After graduating in 1978, Fink was accepted as a provisional artisan at the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville where he built, sold, and repaired guitars. Fink viewed this opportunity to share space with 40 different artisans and to learn to work with such different materials as woods, textiles, metals, and photography as his graduate education. It was here that he developed further his perceptual strengths and his passion for detail. . . .