Mark Jackson is a husband and a father of three. He spent 20 years in banking, consulting, and operations learning how businesses actually work. He studied at Indiana University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Then he served with the US Peace Corps for two years in Bulgaria. That was the real education.

Centennial Investment Partners has bought and launched five businesses in seven years. They find the friction that repeats across industries, build world-class teams around solving it, and use those unfair advantages to start new companies faster and with less mayhem. Things break along the way. Centennial builds anyway.

Outside of work, his calendar belongs to his wife and kids. He used to run long distances. These days, the race is different.