Consultants

JERRY WHITEHEAD

LEAD CONSULTANT

Jerry is the creator and the founder of the Pawnshop Consulting Group. PCG was officially formed in 2001 post selling the remainder of his stores in the Florida market at that time.

Mr. Whitehead has an extensive career in the industry as a second-generation pawnbroker. His career started back in the mid 60’s when he would accompany his father to any one of their several stores back in those days to clean, sweep, mop, and even process some of the inventory as he began working full time every summer going forward.

He grew up in the family operation which had grown to 12 stores by 1990 in the DFW area.

During those years Jerry served in many roles from on the counters as a pawnbroker, to managing several of the stores, and later became the COO of the company. AS COO Jerry and several of the family members including his brother Bobby Whitehead Jr., were involved with modernizing the stores, computerizing them, and moving forward with big box super store concepts which were for the most part ahead of their time back then.

Jerry did leave the family business in 1983 to pursue some of his own interests before returning in 1988. During those years he opened a high-level sound production company in Maui Hawaii. Pacific Music & Traders provided high level sound reinforcement and concert venue sound production services and became the predominant production company on the island during those years, working with many international super stars and more over those years in the event production, corporate AV services, music and entertainment business.

After returning from Maui and back to the family business, during the time span from 1988 till 1992 with key family members the group was attempting to do an initial public offering of their company which indirectly led the group of stores and the various companies to be acquired by Cash America International in late 1992.

That transaction with lease values exceeded 12 million dollars at that time. It should be noted that Whitehead’s Investments, the controlling interest of the chain also obtained one of the highest multiples ever paid for a chain operation of Pawn Shops at that time in history.

It should be denoted that after returning from Maui and getting involved with the family business once again, Jerry went on to the Board of the Directors for the Texas Pawnbrokers Association serving as head of several committees, was then appointed onto the Advisory Board followed by the Board of Directors for the National Pawnbrokers Association. Jerry served at the board and board of trustees for the NPA for some 18 years. He also served as District 1 President for the Florida Pawnbrokers Association from 1997 till 2001 when he sold off his interests in the stores in Florida. To date, Jerry serves in an advisory capacity to several other boards in Mexico, Colombia, Philippines, and was providing article materials for the NPA of the UK for some time as well.

Serving at the various board functions allowed Jerry to acquire a super network of business professionals of all types, on all levels. These relationships played heavily for utilization of the vast industry resources and more to propel all of the projects he has been involved in to the next levels.

After the acquisition of the family pawn chain (1992), Jerry moved on and became the COO of Doc Holliday’s & Jeweller’s based out of Austin Texas. Doc Holliday’s had 8 stores at that time and through a variety of private and debt offerings, Mr. Whitehead and the team successfully built Doc Holliday’s to more than 50 stores in 6 states within 30 months of his joining the team as the director of the operations.

Doc Holliday’s was also attempting to complete an initial public offering during those years. The IPO season for the Pawn Industry closed up in 1997 and in early 1997 Jerry brought Cash Americas’ executive team in, which later acquired Doc Holliday’s solely as a corporate acquisition later that year (1997) for a transaction with leases that exceeded 40 million dollars. Docs was also the largest privately held pawn chain in the America’s at that time.

Just before the acquisition of Doc’s was completed (1997), Jerry moved on down to Florida with another group he was involved in and created. They bought several pawnshops, opened a chain of title loan stores all in the Broward and Dade Counties and later sold off all interest in the Pawn shops by 2001.

Throughout his career, Jerry has been involved in the acquisition or sell of more than 250+ stores in the last 35 + years. The consulting relationships began back in the late 80’s and flourished as the seeds for the creation of the Pawnshop Consulting Group formally in 2001.

To date, PCG has serviced more than 600 clients in more than 40 countries world wide and is the only true, global pawn consultant, and was the first mover in this Pawn Consulting space he created.

PCG to date has the industry’s only Pawn Peer Focus Group, PCG has produced several International Pawn Symposiums, the last of which was hosted at the Ritz Carlton in the Cayman Islands. PCG has produced the Crossover EXPO series in Florida for several years in conjunction with the FPA. These were high level trade shows, with focus on industry specialty vendors, along with high level educational and accredited presenters at these functions. PCG also created a series of high-level management camps in Florida and has since moved them on to other states. These camps are geared towards training and bringing out the best of the best in input, support, training, and much more. Unlike anything witnessed in the industry today.

PCG has an exceptional network of industry professionals that Mr. Whitehead has developed that we refer to and support. We have a wide network of consultants and other support individuals and groups to work with to support and resolve any level of necessity that anyone in the industry today may require at any level.

We specialize in multi-unit systems and techniques, training, support, auditing, valuations, acquisitions, marketing, technology, capitalization, professional recruitment, and so much more.

From Jerry

It has been and remains my lifelong goal to continuously raise the bar as the industry’s leading consulting firm and how we support our customers. Our primary goals of being better and making it better every day for each and every one of our clients, and the industry in general. I want to the leave the industry in a better place than I found it!!

See published works @ https://www.pawnshopconsultinggroup.com/pawn-shop-published-works/