David Y. Kippen, PhD - CEO & Chief Strategist

David Kippen

With a background spanning advertising and communications and a client base spanning the globe and including top brands in every sector, Dr. David Kippen is a world-renowned leader in brand strategy.

David's past clients include category-leading brands like Ameriprise Financial, Bain & Company, Burger King, Catholic Healthcare West, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dell, Disney, E.ON, HP, HSBC, General Mills, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, Premera Blue Cross, Teva and T-Mobile. 

David has extensive international consulting experience and regularly presents on brand and communications theory at conferences and at customized seminars for audiences ranging from practitioners to senior executive leadership. Recent venues have included the Chicago Graduate School of Business, the Huizenga Business School, Nova Southeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA and for numerous associations and professional conferences including The Conference Board, the Northern California HR Association (NCHRA), the Society for HR Management (SHRM), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Western Pension & Benefits Conference (WP&BC).

David has held leadership roles in several top associations that support the HR and communications professions. He is currently a member of SHRM's Performance Management Task Force and an active member of the Council of Communication Management. He has served as President and Chief Executive of the International Association of Business Communicators San Francisco chapter. He also served for three years on SHRM's Special Expertise Panel on Consulting and Outsourcing and as a Member at Large on the board of directors of Western Pension & Benefits Conference.

David holds a bachelor of arts in English from San Francisco State University (magna cum laude) and PhD in English (Rhetoric) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He completed doctoral work as a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford-UC Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies.

He currently resides in San Francisco, California with his wife Valerie.