About the Summit Chairman

Don Reinertsen is president of Reinertsen & Associates, specializing in the management of the product development process. Before forming his own firm, he consulted at McKinsey & Co., an international management consulting firm, and was Senior Vice President of operations at Zimmerman Holdings, a private diversified manufacturing company. His contributions in the field of product development have been recognized internationally. He is particularly noted for bringing fresh perspectives and quantitative rigor to development process management.

In 1983, while a consultant at McKinsey & Co., he wrote a landmark article in Electronic Business magazine that first quantified the value of development speed. This article has been cited in the frequently quoted McKinsey study that indicated “6 months delay can be worth 33 percent of lifecycle profits.” He coined the term “Fuzzy Front End” in 1983 and began applying world class manufacturing techniques in product development in 1985. His book, Managing the Design Factory, is recognized as a powerful and thoughtful application of manufacturing thinking to product development. Don is also co-author of, Developing Products in Half the Time. Mr. Reinertsen holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School.