Joining our Chicago office as a director in 2007, David helps companies identify key drivers (and inhibitors) of performance, devise plans leading to sustainable growth, and identify opportunities to improve operating performance by optimizing major cost areas. Prior to joining Stax, David led H&R Block s market and competitive strategy team for five years, reporting directly to the CMO and supporting the COO and business unit leaders. David s work included defining new business strategies, developing the distribution strategy to leverage HRB s network, generating insights from consumer and competitive data, and optimizing marketing spend by geography, channel, timing, and messaging. Previously, David spent seven years as a management consultant in Deloitte Consulting s Strategy and Operations practice. David has conducted extensive research in marketing strategy and decision-making and recently published a book chapter (with Peter Tufano and Daniel Schneider of the Harvard Business School) aimed at helping companies better serve the needs of low-income consumers. He completed his systems modeling education at MIT, is a doctoral candidate in dynamic systems analysis and mathematics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, has an MBA from Purdue University and a BS in finance, and is a graduate of Columbia University s professional program in Operations Research.