The New Product Development Cycle

Robin Karol is CEO of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), a professional society that creates and nurtures a global community in which people and businesses learn to grow and prosper through innovation and the introduction of new products. Robin is an adjunct full professor at the University of Delaware Lerner School of Business Administration, where she teaches courses on the Management of Creativity and Innovation. Robin worked at DuPont for 23 years in various aspects of innovation and new product development, achieving the role of Director of Innovation Processes. A certified new product development professional (NPDP), she received her PhD in Biochemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has numerous publications and has presented at many conferences and workshops. The Industrial Research Institute (IRI) presented Robin with its Maurice Holland Award for the best paper in its journal Research-Technology Management in 2003.

‍Beebe Nelson is Co-Director of the International Association for Product Development (IAPD), a consortium of leading product developers who come together to improve their ability to execute new product development. She has organized, chaired, presented at, and facilitated conferences and workshops in product development, and has contributed chapters and articles in a number of venues. From 1998 to 2003, she was Book Review Editor of the Journal of Product Innovation Management, a publication of the PDMA. Beebe is a certified new product development professional (NPDP) and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Beebe has taught Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and most recently in the College of Management at UMass-Lowell. She chairs the Advisory Council of Partners in Ending Hunger, a not-for-profit organization located in Maine.