About Dave

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Dave is an experienced technology executive, consumer marketer, consultant, educator, and social entrepreneur, with a strong interest in values-based innovation. Dave’s  fascination with innovation led him to explore why innovative technology creates breakthroughs in some cases and for some companies, and in other cases does not. The results of this exploration, and of his work in both the classroom and the business world are captured in his first book Hunter or Hunted:Technology, Innovation, and Competitive Strategy.

He is both a lecturer and the Executive Director of the applied innovation program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He teaches graduate level design thinking and innovation courses, and directs Berkeley’s Innovation, Creativity and Design Practice – which assists corporations in driving innovation initiatives inside their firms using Haas students, faculty, and frameworks. Program clients include Adobe, Clorox, Dow, Intel, Nissan, SAP, Visa and dozens of other firms. He also co-founded UC Berkeley’s corporate Roundtable on Applied Innovation and Design (BRAID), and is the faculty director for Berkeley’s Innovation for Responsible and Sustainable Impact program in Geneva Switzerland.

Dave recently introduced foresight work into the Haas MBA curriculum. A response to technology-driven exponential change, this methodology provides a strategic framework for avoiding blindspots and anticipating and managing disruption. He has also lectured for a variety of other business schools including Vlerick (Belgium) UNIGE (Switzerland), Porto (Portugal), St. Gallen (Switzerland), and St. Mary’s.   

As an active consultant, facilitator, and coach, Dave has worked on innovation related initiatives with a variety of Fortune 1000 companies, as well as several NGOs, and the United States Air Force. He has coached thousands of students and executives to collectively solve problems, coalesce as teams, and work more collaboratively, while developing innovative solutions to ambiguous and difficult issues of culture, performance, and growth.  He writes and speaks frequently on the topics of human centered design, innovation capability, and responsible business, including keynotes and a piece on the topic of innovation culture in the MIT Sloan Management Review.

Dave is also applying his operating and innovation experience as CEO of ClimatePath, a social venture he founded with the goals of using market mechanisms to accelerate corporate social responsibility and encourage sustainable development. He developed the idea for ClimatePath while COO of the NGO TransFairUSA (now Fair Trade USA), a 4 time winner of Fast Company/Monitor’s social capital award, and a leader in developing market based solutions to ending global poverty.

 Dave is a former CMO and COO with a background in technology, consumer products, and strategy consulting, and has helped build, grow, and eventually sell several Deloitte 50 and INC 500 businesses. He has a passion for building teams that can turn ideas into action, solving tough and ambiguous challenges, and developing others to do the same. He has business degrees from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and is currently pursuing a late career PhD from in Rhetoric, Communication and Business Design (RCID) at Clemson.  

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