About Dave

There's plenty on my LinkedIn where you'll see a lot of wonderful recommendations from clients, and info about teams I've had the good fortune to lead and support.  

Want a few direct quotes?

"Couldn't recommend Dave more highly. Dave is an engineer by background, a leader by experience, and a coach by nature. Dave was able to understand my problems and help me both work through extremely difficult tactical situations and grow my broader understanding of my leadership and growth points. I and my team said my management style improved notably with Dave's help.   

Some highlights:

• Most crucially, I trust Dave's judgement and character. His suggestions worked and helped me tremendously in improving my management style, making hard conversations productive, and crafting a leadership style that felt authentic and effective
• He has the right mixture of warmth, humor, and zero bullshit. He'll give you hard feedback in a way that is genuine and helpful
• He's got a number of systematic thought frameworks that I found helpful in reordering how I think about the world
• He's just done it before. Dave doesn't talk in b-school generalities, he gets very specific on how things play out. I came away with a much more useful abilities to apply beliefs and concepts I already had

Extremely happy to have worked with Dave and can't wait to work with him again at my next company."

 -- Dwight Crow, multiple-time CEO/Founder and client

"I have fundamentally changed my way of managing and leading, because of the work I did with Dave.

We worked on topics such as delegation, time management, situational management styles, feedback, decision making roles, recruiting, organizational structure, among others.

He always presented useful frameworks, but ultimately coached me into defining my own leadership style, which by the end of our sessions started to become second nature. His unique experience allowed him to integrate some domain mentoring to the coaching sessions, which was extremely useful.

I always felt listened to, and I heard from him a non-judgmental but objective position to the issues/topics that I presented which helped me see things differently and come up with my own conclusions.

I HIGHLY recommend Dave as a coach. Don't hesitate to start your sessions with him ASAP!"

 -- Manuel Andere, Co-founder/CTO at Sofia.mx

"I deeply respect Dave’s ability to transform leaders, teams & companies. If you are ready to become a better leader - I’d highly recommend getting started with Dave right away!

From a personal development perspective, as anyone who has built a company can attest, being at the forefront of a fast-growing & constantly evolving company is an exceptional challenge. In short, it often feels like you are managing a new organization every 3 months. Working with someone like Dave, who is able to help you clarify your focus, eliminate negative habits, and build upon your strengths, is a secret weapon I sincerely wish all developing CEOs could have.

In Dave, I’ve found a coach I deeply trust & respect, not just for his experiences and expertise, but also for his ability & eagerness to learn & grow alongside me. By mixing deep operational excellence with his love for life & learning, Dave is a uniquely gifted coach, who is eager to lean in and insist that you solve the biggest of challenges."

 -- Andrew Kitchell, multiple-time CEO/Founder and client

Want a summary of my LinkedIn recommendations?

My clients consistently say that their time with me has a transformative impact - making them both better leaders and better people.  They appreciate how I bring deep empathy, emotional intelligence, and my experience as a senior operator to find both actionable strategies and personal insights.  I help them clarify their leadership style, align their actions with their values, and build high-performing teams…so they get more stuff done with less friction.

Leaders frequently highlight my structured approach, noting how I bring useful frameworks, follow-up resources, and clear agendas to each session, while also creating a non-judgmental, safe space for exploration. They routinely report making concrete progress on their most challenging problems, while using each problem as a case study to prepare for future challenges.  I encourage personal reflection, values alignment, and I foster deep self-awareness.

They also describe me as authentic, inspiring, and deeply invested in their success. Many appreciate how I balance compassion with practical guidance, helping them navigate both important decisions and emotional challenges. As a result, many have achieved significant breakthroughs like radical reductions in stress, improved team and home dynamics, and long-lasting leadership transformations.

(h/t ChatGPT for this summary of my LinkedIn recommendations.)

Want the above for yourself?

If we're a fit, my experience is that all it takes is time together, a willingness to try new things, and opening up.  

If you're going to open up with me, I think it's only fair to open up with you.  Here goes:

Want to know me personally?  Let’s go deep.  

My parents divorced when I was ten, and I watched my mother work two jobs to make ends meet.  I knew that my brain was my ticket off food assistance, so I made sure I got perfect grades, until they didn't matter any more.  I discovered I loved the feeling of control I got from programming, and I followed that passion to two degrees in Computer Science at MIT.  I minored in Creative Writing, and earned enough money as a poet to...buy a round of drinks(!)  I dropped off the PhD track in Computer Science to go into industry and deliver value to customers, not academics.  

I was asked to manage early in my career, won awards for leadership, and began teaching leadership in order to learn faster.  My first startup in b2b SaaS nearly went public, while my partner and I had 3 kids under 5.  I burned myself out, and my partner sent me off to a Zen Buddhist monastery to learn to meditate.  That changed the course of my life, and 20+ years later I’m in aspirancy to become a lay priest in the Zen Buddhist tradition.  My last startup was Orbital Insight, an AI company funded by Sequoia with a $250M valuation, which was acquired by Steve Wozniak.

I ran my first marathon at age 50, and I was fortunate to be in the best shape of my adult life when I discovered I had Stage IV cancer.  I endured 1000 hours of chemo infusions and 3 surgeries to reschedule my death.  I am now cancer-free, but with an exquisite sense of my own mortality, and what matters.

I have aligned my work with my life purpose, which is "to bring out the best in those around me."  A personal goal is to live to my 80th birthday, and on that day receive cards from leaders telling me the difference our work made in their lives.  That will be one mark that I lived my professional life well.

What will mark a life well lived for you?