Key Note Speaker Annouced for 14th Annual Conference!
We are proud to confirm that Brian Spaly, class of 99, is our keynote speaker for the 14th Annual PrincetonEN conference. Register here for the conference, happening on campus Friday May 28th. Brian will be taking us through his journey into entrepreneurship. Brian is the first to admit that his path to entrepreneurship wasn’t exactly traditional. In 2005, while many of his classmates at Stanford Business School were plotting to change the world with the next big internet start-up, Brian was toiling away on a startup of his own – better fitting men’s trousers. An obsession that began back in 2003 while he worked in private equity in Boston – spending his after-hours custom tailoring the fit of his pants by ripping apart the seams and putting them back together with a girlfriend’s old sewing machine – began to blossom as classmates started purchasing multiple pairs of these fun and irreverent trousers. Stanford’s parking lot became a fitting room, and Brian began building a business, out of the trunk of his car. The result was a colorful line of lightweight corduroy and cotton twill men’s pants produced under the Bonobos name.
Word began to spread rapidly, and Brian’s close friend from Stanford, Andy Dunn, joined the team in the summer after graduation (2007) and spearheaded an angel fundraising round, as well as other company-building efforts, while Brian continued to expand the line, develop new designs, and sell trousers. In the Fall of 2007, they moved the company to Manhattan, and launched an innovative e-commerce platform built upon the foundation of extraordinary customer service. Under their leadership, Bonobos grew to over twenty-five employees by the end of 2009 while being named one of AdAge’s 50 hottest brands and appearing in dozens of publications, including the New York Times.
In late 2009, Brian left Bonobos to become CEO of Trunk Club, a men’s clothing service based in Chicago that offers personal shopping services to men across the country. Now leading his second venture-backed fashion start-up, Brian is excited to revolutionize the way men shop for clothes.
Brian graduated from Princeton magna cum laude in 1999 with an A.B. in Economics and a certificate in Finance, though if he were to do it again he’d spend more time in the Art and Archeology department. After Princeton, Brian spent several years in the Boston and San Francisco offices of Bain & Company and non-profit sister firm The Bridgespan Group. He also spent 3 years working on consumer and healthcare deals, again in the Boston and San Francisco offices, of Parthenon Capital, a middle market private equity fund. Just before heading for Stanford Brian spent a final year as Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions at Accumed Home Healthcare, a home nursing services company based in Austin, Texas that was one of his transactions from Parthenon Capital.
Brian is thrilled to be back in his homeland, the Midwest, and it’s finest city, Chicago. Outside of the office he enjoys squash, skiing, windsurfing and beach volleyball. He successfully completed an Ironman triathlon in Canada in 2005, placing in the top 10% of competitors. A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, he remains a loyal Michigan sports fan to this day.
