Perry Klebahn
AUTHOR

Perry Klebahn

Business & Careers
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Perry's a seasoned teacher, entrepreneur, product designer, chief executive and co-founding member of the Stanford d.school's faculty with over 20 years of experience. Perry started a business from his product design master’s thesis, founding Atlas Snowshoe Company, which remains the leader in snowshoe design and technology. Perry sold Atlas and became the head of Sales and Marketing for the clothing brand, Patagonia in 1999. He then went on to be named the CEO of the iconic bag company, Timbuk2 in 2005. Both opportunities gave him extensive experience in brand turn-around, design and innovation. During the years running startups and corporations, Perry has taught at Stanford since 1996. Perry focuses on teaching practical skills in the classroom setting, that innovative leaders and founders can use in their real world corporate settings. He measures success solely on the impact his students make, as they endlessly go on to become successful leaders in their fields and innovate inside organizations---often launching their own. Perry's unique approach is simple, yet effective. He uses REAL projects in the academic environment, and focuses on rapid ideation and prototyping, pushing his students to experience actual applications that they can use in their future careers. Perry's deep focus on empirical skills has made him a preeminent teacher and leader in innovation.He leverages the breadth and depth of his experience as he pushes his students to bring rigor and precision to their fast-paced design work. His students often tell him that, while they were intimidated by him during the course, they're grateful for the pressure he placed on them to exceed their own expectations. Perry is a founding teaching team member for the d.school’s startup gauntlet class, Launchpad, the innovation leadership course, d.leadership and the week-long executive education intensive, Bootcamp. He is also on the teaching teams for the personal development course, Designer in Society and the organizational change course, d.org. In every class, Perry guides his students to look back in order to discover what to do next and works from the unshakeable belief that it’s always possible to see a problem differently. Perry is an Adjunct Professor and Director of Executive Education at the d.school. He holds a B.A. in Physics from Wesleyan University (1988) and a Master’s degree in Product Design from Stanford University (1991).
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