Don Peppers

Don Peppers (born 1950) is an American business executive, author, keynote speaker, and a founding partner of Peppers & Rogers Group, a customer-centric management consulting firm.

Peppers holds a B.S. in astronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School.

He started his career as an economist in the oil industry, and as the director of accounting for a regional airline. Later he served as the CEO of a top-20 direct marketing agency (Perkins/Butler Direct Marketing, a division of Chiat/Day). His 1995 book Life’s a Pitch: Then You Buy (1995) chronicles his exploits as a celebrated new-business rainmaker in the advertising industry.

Peppers is a competitive runner and married father of five.

Peppers' writing, along with his keynote presentations and executive workshops, focus on the business issues that today’s global enterprises are grappling with, while trying to maintain a competitive edge in their marketplaces. These include:

• Building stronger customer relationships, better customer experiences, and trust;
• Balancing long- and short-term financial goals by focusing on customer value;
• Engaging employees in order to create a stronger, more competitive corporate culture;
• Stimulating innovative thinking and benefiting from new ideas within a firm; and
• Dealing with social media, customer advocacy, and increasing levels of business transparency.

The Times of London has listed Peppers among their “Top 50 Business Brains,” and Accenture has included him in its global list of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals.”

Writings

With co-author Martha Rogers, Ph.D., Peppers has published nine books, selling over a million copies in 18 languages. Peppers’ and Rogers’ newest book is Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage. It argues that social networks and rapidly increasing transparency have combined to raise customer expectations regarding the trustworthiness of the companies and organizations they deal with.

Peppers and Rogers are often credited with having launched the CRM revolution with their very first book, The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time (1993). Inc. Magazine managing editor George Gendron called this book “one of the two or three most important business books ever written,” while Business Week called it the “bible of the new marketing.”

In 2011, the authors released a second, updated edition of their widely used CRM textbook for university use in graduate level courses, Managing Customer Relationships: A Strategic Perspective.

In 2012, Peppers released "Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage".

Also he writes frequently as a thought leader for both LinkedIn and Fastcompany.com.