James Kindley

Woodworking

Mr. Kindley was a senior lecturer of marketing at the Cox School of Business at SMU from 1996 to 2009. He continued to teach a special innovation class in the executive MBA program at SMU once per year until 2019. He was the director of the MBA program and an instructor at the College of Charleston from 2011 to 2020.; he continues as an adjunct to present. He has taught at the University of South Carolina and the University of Missouri. His research interests center on innovation and creativity, specifically focused at the front end of new product development. He received eight distinguished teaching awards in the graduate and undergraduate programs at Cox.

Mr. Kindley has helped develop and market numerous successful consumer products for companies such as Rubbermaid, Bissell, Williamson-Dickie, American Pottery, and Base4. He has been a founder or co-founder of three consumer products firms. He is presently assisting several companies with their new product development and marketing efforts as a consultant. He holds over fifteen patents related to the above.

Mr. Kindley served on the board of Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Company from 2000 to 2017 when it was sold to VF Corporation. He currently is an advisor to several small, early-stage enterprises. Mr. Kindley has a BS in Industrial Design from Georgia Tech; an MS in Product Design from Illinois Tech, and an MBA from Harvard.