Summary

1st-person

That’s me in Greece, working with a group of refugees from a variety of countries. Sometimes I have a beard. Sometimes I have a fro. I am always going to and fro. From a wee age I have been interested in exploring the world, whether through sports or scrambling through Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. This curiosity has led me to work (play) in many industries, companies, and places around the world. For the last six years, I have been focused on exploring the oft-taboo world of emotions, and in the process, have created tools to help me better explore my most unknown territory–myself–and to communicate what I’m feeling with the world.

3rd-person

Jim Kleiber went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study electrical engineering. In his junior year, despite being at the top of his class, he switched to Intercultural Communications. To many, this seemed like a disconnected and ludicrous leap. To Jim, however, it made complete sense: he switched his focus from computer language to human language.

His career also may seem quite discontinuous to others. During university, he held two summer internships at Caterpillar in the technical marketing department. After university, at age 22, he moved to Tanzania to manage a start-up consulting firm focused on economic development. After about two years, he returned home to Michigan to join a consulting firm that helped Fortune 500 companies with innovation R&D. He then contracted with another consulting firm that focused on helping large companies innovate around their company culture. In his time in consulting, he noticed how empathy seemed to play a very large role in business and yet he didn’t see anyone building tools to increase empathy.

So he left consulting to spend two years building iFeelio, a mobile phone app to help himself and others get better in touch with how they felt. He then created Emotional Self-Defense, to bring these tools for empathy to a different format. The goal was to have a martial art for practicing how to respond to hate with love, how to protect our hearts from emotional abuse.

While he continues to focus on empathy, he maintains the engineering mindset that he developed early at college, and thus the tools that he builds are very practical, systematic, and simple. He likes to say that what he does is help people practice the fundamentals of communication.

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jimKleiber
Jim without a beard.

People

I would not be where I am today without the kind and unconditional love of my parents, my sister, and my closest of friends. I am trying every day to be more forthcoming with my gratitude and love for them. To all the other people I have met in my journey: you have inspired me beyond recognition to the point where I don’t recognize the sheer depth of influence you have had over my soul.

Companies

I have worked for a huge Fortune 500 (Caterpillar), a huge university (University of Illinois), a small Tanzanian firm (Diligent Consulting Ltd), a huge department store (Macy’s), two small innovation firms (The Inovo Group, Innovatrium), a pizza place, an ice cream store, and I even had a one-day stint as a golf caddy.

Clients

I have interacted with too many clients to list, but some of the more well-known ones include Dow Chemical, Corning, Celanese, Michigan Governor’s Office of Urban and Metropolitan Initiatives, 5 art museums across the US, DANIDA, SJSU, and many more.

Languages

I speak English natively, Spanish and Swahili fluently, French and Portuguese decently, and a mouthful of German, with useful phrases in perhaps 10 more.

Locations

I feel incredibly fortunate to have seen so much of this world and in so many different contexts. I have been quite the nomad since leaving Michigan at age 18 for the University of Illinois, pursuing life, work, and study.

Longer than 3 consecutive months

  • North America: USA (California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan), Costa Rica
  • Africa: Tanzania

Shorter than 3 consecutive months

  • Europe: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, UK
  • Africa: Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Morocco, Rwanda, Uganda
  • Asia: UAE (Dubai)
  • North America: Nicaragua, Trinidad & Tobago