George Cloutier Biography
George Cloutier, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, founded American Management Services in 1986. The firm specializes in financial turnarounds and profit development for small and mid-sized companies across the nation.
Using just $42,000 in seed capital, Cloutier built his company into an organization of over 150 employees, and tens of millions in annual revenue. Cloutier and American Management Services have worked with 7,000 clients in 400 industries and implemented over one billion dollars in profits and savings. American Management Services has brought hundreds of businesses back from the brink of bankruptcy to top tier profitability.
Today, Cloutier is well known as the nation’s leading small business expert. He developed his views over the last 25 years on small and mid-size business, profits, and the failure of government to assist them. Top economic, media, and political professionals from around the world frequently solicit his advice on profit issues faced by small- and mid-cap companies. He has become a regular on national television programs such as, Fox News, Fox Business News, ABC’s 20/20, CNBC’s Squawk Box, MSNBC, and Bloomberg Television. Cloutier is often quoted throughout the national media – AP, Fortune, Forbes.com, Entrepreneur, Washington Business Journal, Market Watch, Yahoo News, The Kiplinger Letter, MSN Money, Crain’s New York Business, Reuters, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, Boston Business Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Orlando Business Journal, The Times-Picayune, Worth, Miami Herald, and the LA Times, to name a few.
Cloutier co-founded and serves as Co-Chairman of Partner America™, a unique, public/private partnership between the United States Conference of Mayors and American Management Services dedicated to small and midsized business growth in the nation’s metro economies. Formed in 2000, the program is the nation’s first such small business resource initiative, providing management expertise, technical assistance, education, and government procurement opportunities to help grow small businesses across the country.
Cloutier’s business expertise has also been tapped by large publicly traded companies. He served as Vice Chairman on Circon Corporation’s board of directors, and in 1999 was called upon to serve as lead director and interim CEO to navigate its turnaround during the much publicized and—what was considered to be—the longest running hostile takeover bid in American business. After taking over as CEO, he managed to negotiate a successful deal with Maxxim Medical. He negotiated almost a 300% profit for Circon shareholders. This hostile takeover attempt and Cloutier’s quick successful resolution has become a landmark subject of the Corporate Governance course at Harvard Business School.