David’s 15-year tech career included executive roles at startups across the SF Bay Area and Europe, during which time he hired, trained and developed dozens of young professionals. He has been coaching MBA applicants since 2012 with a special focus on developing the right career goals.
“I truly felt David believed in my story (even sending me related news articles for personal interest) and worked hard to ensure my ideas and experiences came through in my essays and interview responses. I have no regrets about any aspect of the applications because everything was authentic – I’m just glad I had David on my side.”
In his corporate career, David has supervised more than 100 elite young professionals, preparing them to take on leadership roles early in their careers.
For example:
You can also see testimonials about David’s career coaching on his LinkedIn profile.
David can help you understand the skills you need to be successful as a general manager with P&L responsibility, and a people manager, and tell you how employers are likely to react to your profile. It goes without saying that David can also guide you through any tough questions about how to approach your managers for recommendations.
His advice will not only help you to articulate clear career goals for MBA admissions, but give you a roadmap for actually advancing in your career.
“David was very helpful in helping me determine my career goals (one of his specialties) and making sure that my applications told a cohesive and compelling story. He is very knowledgeable about the tech industry and helped me chart my career path and the steps necessary to reach my end goal.”
No matter your background–David has worked in supervisory roles at startups, mid-sized companies, PE-owned companies, and publicly traded companies, across the US and Europe — David can help.
David is famous in the MBA admissions industry for publishing brutally honest commentary like Why MBA Rankings are a Crock of Shit, and 4 Dirty Secrets of the MBA Admissions Consulting Industry.
His clients have said:
- “David did not mince words, and was very honest and objective with his feedback. But I could tell he always had my long-term interest in mind and so I paid special attention to all his suggestions.”
- “David is a great resource and is always very candid and helpful in sharing advice and insights. I learned a lot about myself throughout the process thanks to David’s guidance.”
- “I got some honest, valuable inputs from David on my essays. He and Alice are great at what they do. David helped me to brainstorm my stories, and pushed me where I could do better. I finally turned my essays into cohesive, interesting stories. Had I not had David’s help, my essays would have read like mumbles at best.”
David has worked in every corner of the tech industry, and helped to launch numerous successful ventures.
The first step in David’s tech career was joining startup Efficient Frontier as the #1 full-time employee after the founders, even before the company’s Series A round. In this role, David:
In 2011, Efficient Frontier was sold to Adobe for $400M.
David has also managed intrapreneurial ventures, and helped traditional yellow page directory conglomerate European Directories to launch digital advertising products across eight European countries. These experiences are complemented by several roles at publicly traded Internet companies Yahoo and Travelzoo.
“For the essays, David’s help was phenomenal. He really helped me refine my career goals so that it follows a compelling and logical story. He even shared industry trends/ links with me to help me identify trends to speak about in my goals essay. This is the level of personalized attention he gives ! The fact that David has a tech+ business background is a great advantage you have as a tech applicant – he gets the industry, he gets the jargon and then refines it in a simple way that anyone can understand!”
Whether you want to know the nuts and bolts of launching a startup, the difference between business roles in tech (like biz ops, BD, product management, product marketing management, and more), or how your non-tech background might translate into a tech role, David can guide you.
Alice van Harten, Ph.D. 