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.

Vivek Wadhwa is a Fellow at the Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. His academic roles include helping students better prepare for the real world and leading groundbreaking research into globalization and the U.S. competitive advantage. He is also an advisor to several start-up companies and a regular columnist for BusinessWeek.com.

As an entrepreneur with 25 years experience in technology, Professor Wadhwa is a pioneer of innovation and has founded two software companies. His first venture began at New York-based investment banking powerhouse CS First Boston, where he was VP of Information Services. There, he spearheaded the development of technology for creating computer systems, which was so successful CSFB spun off the business unit into its own company, Seer Technologies. As Executive VP and CTO, Wadhwa helped grow the startup into a $118 million publicly traded company.

Next, with the explosion of the Internet, Wadhwa saw an opportunity to help businesses adapt to new and fast changing technologies. He started Relativity Technologies, which was named one of the 25 "coolest" companies in the world by Fortune Magazine. For his vision, Wadhwa was named a "Leader of Tomorrow" by Forbes.com. Mr. Wadhwa holds an MBA from New York University and a B.A. in Computing Studies from the Canberra University in Australia.