John Larkin is a Senior Investment Partner at Venture 53. His mission is to help craft the firm’s growth strategy while assisting with deal sourcing, capital raising, and the creation of value within portfolio companies. At Legg Mason (later sold to Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc.) John led the firm’s entry into the transportation markets. For 17 years, Mr. Larkin headed up Stifel’s transportation and logistics research effort. In January of 2018, John transitioned from Stifel’s Research Department to Stifel’s Investment Banking team. While in Investment Banking, John advised numerous publicly traded and privately held transportation and logistics companies as well as many financial sponsors with investments in the transportation and logistics space.
John has been recognized as an all-star analyst by Institutional Investor magazine numerous times, a Wall Street Journal All-Star analyst on several occasions, and has been awarded multiple StarMine stock picking and earnings estimate accuracy awards. Previously, John has served as: Advisor to Lean Solutions, Chairman and CEO of RailWorks Corporation, Managing Director with Alex. Brown and Sons' transportation team, AVP - Planning and Analysis at CSX Transportation, Inc., Systems Engineering Consultant with Day & Zimmermann, Inc., and a Research Associate at the Center for Transportation Research (at the University of Texas at Austin).
John earned his MBA from Harvard University, a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Vermont. John is a CFA Charterholder. Vice Chairman of Crown Diesel, and a member of The Board of Directors for CRST International, eNow Energy, Cub Ventures (CDLife), Novapath Supply Chain Systems & Rygen Technologies, iShared Transportation, Warrior Logistics, and Phoenix Intermodal. He also serves on the Boards of Advisors for FreightWaves, Haul, LoadSmart, DFMData, On-ramp Payments, Truckl.io, Interstate Health Systems, Leaf Logistics, and LineHaul Station.