James M Phillips

James M. Phillips is an American businessman who is Chairman and CEO of NanoMech Inc., a global manufacturer of nano-coatings and nano-lubricants. Prior to that, Phillips served as founding Chairman and CEO of the Luminetx Corporation, a bioscience technology company. He also serves as CEO of Snowflake Technologies Corporation, a subsidiary of Luminetx.

Phillips’ career began when he was asked to do research for his master’s thesis on an emerging company, Telecommunications System of America (TSA). TSA sold to Northern Telecom (Nortel Networks) and Phillips stayed on, moving rapidly through the ranks to vice president. After Nortel, he was named president of National Satellite Paging, changed the company name to SkyTel, and created the nation’s largest messaging company.

Following SkyTel, Phillips moved to Telular Corporation, selling a portion to Motorola when Telular went public. He remained with Motorola and participated in launching digital cellular and multimedia, bringing the cable modem to the market.

Phillips went on to become Chairman & CEO of Interactive Pictures Corp.(iPIX), a company that created the first virtual tours by using 360° navigable images. Eventually, he left IPIX to help build the FedEx Institute of Technology, becoming CEO and Chairman of the entity on the University of Memphis campus.

In 2004, after two and a half years at the FedEx Institute, Phillips was installed as CEO-in-Residence of Morgan Keegan & Company. While there, he was asked to evaluate a technology called VeinViewer. Phillips raised the capital to put VeinViewer into production. That was the beginning of what is now Luminetix Corporation.