PERRY KLEBAHN

Perry Klebahn is an innovator, an executive leader, and a co-founding member of the faculty at the d.School. Perry has been making impact at Stanford since 1996 as a Consulting Professor, and as the Director of Executive Education programs for the d.School he now engineers the workshops that give business leaders on all levels a meaningful and hands on experience with the design thinking process. Perry focuses on teaching insights and innovation techniques that drive change in organizations to make real impact for companies.

Perry is an innovator and entrepreneur at heart having founded Atlas Snowshoe Company in 1991. The pioneering design behind the first Atlas Snow Shoe was Perry’s graduate school project for the Stanford Product Design program that same year, and over the next ten years he designed, manufactured and marketed the first high performance snowshoe in the world. Perry later took leadership roles in larger companies such as COO for Patagonia and CEO for Timbuk2.

Perry is the co-author of the 2022 book Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters which unpacks why and how innovation is not an event, a workshop, a sprint, or a hackathon; it’s a result of mastering ideaflow, a practice that elevates everything else you do. Check out the Ideaflow website at www.ideaflow.design.

Speech topics

Ideaflow: How Leaders and Entrepreneurs Drive High-Volume Creative Output with Transformative Results

In the tradition of perennial sellers like Creativity, Inc., and Flow, Perry Klebahn of Stanford’s innovation-focused d.school restore creativity to its position of central importance in business, offering managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs a robust and flexible set of disciplines for generating more and better ideas—and dramatically boosting the creative output of their organizations.

Disruption: The Leader’s Imperative

In this talk, Perry will illuminate the critical role that consumer insights play in driving disruptive innovations, the psychological biases that blind us to seeing such insights, and tools professionals can use to overcome these biases. Drawing from years in the “C Suite” research and practice at Stanford University, Perry will weave stories of corporate innovation together with tangible examples to deliver a high-impact session that opens participants’ eyes to a new, more human way of working.

Participants leave this session with a deeper understanding of, an appreciation for, and practical tools of design to drive their teams to better customer insights, and action.

Leading Innovation for Growth

From new products and service offerings, innovation is about molding new ideas to create greater worth. Mastering it has become a necessity for businesses to grow. In this talk, Leading Innovation for Growth, Stanford's Perry Klebahn will provide you with the framework to create innovative solutionsin the face of constant change.

Books

Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters 

Stanford d.school directors Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn show leaders how to dramatically boost business results by amplifying the creative output of their organizations, drawing from their popular Stanford courses.

Download an exclusive excerpt of IDEAFLOW here.

LaunchPad: A Founder's Guide to Starting a Company

From the professors behind Stanford Design School's (aka "the d.school") famous course, the game-changing d.school class at Stanford for innovators and entrepreneurs is now a book for everyone.

Request booking info