David Shaffer is executive vice president of The Thomson Corporation where he leads critical enterprise-wide initiatives focused on leveraging assets and driving operational effectiveness across the Corporation. In his role as EVP, Mr. Shaffer, serves on the Corporation’s management executive committee and reports directly to Thomson president and CEO, Dick Harrington. Mr. Shaffer also serves on the Thomson board of directors.

Before assuming his current position, Mr. Shaffer oversaw the successful transformation of Thomson Financial, a leading provider of information services and work solutions to the worldwide financial community, as its chief executive officer since 2002. Prior to joining Thomson Financial, Mr. Shaffer served as president and chief executive officer of Thomson Learning, where he developed the strategy of leveraging company resources to offer a full range of learning solutions that support customers throughout the learning process.

Mr. Shaffer joined The Thomson Corporation in April 1998 as president and chief executive officer of Thomson Publishing International. In November 1998, he assumed the role of chief operating officer of The Thomson Corporation responsible for the business strategy and management of its information and publishing activities in key market sectors including legal and regulatory, learning and educational publishing, financial, and scientific and healthcare information. He was appointed to the Thomson Board of Directors in 1998. Prior to Thomson, Mr. Shaffer was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Jostens Learning Corporation, the nation's leading developer of K-12 educational software.

Mr. Shaffer's management and strategic planning career began with Dun & Bradstreet's Official Airline Guides, Inc. (OAG). Working his way up to president of OAG and vice chairman of Thomas Cook Travel Inc., he oversaw the acquisition of these businesses by Maxwell Communications Corporation PLC (MCC) in 1988. Mr. Shaffer then became chairman, president and chief executive officer of Macmillan Inc., and chairman of OAG. He also sat on MCC's board of directors and was responsible for the Maxwell/Macmillan Group's worldwide electronic information businesses. In 1993, he left Maxwell to become the president of the Educational and Professional Publishing Group at McGraw-Hill.

Mr. Shaffer is a member of the Advisory Board at Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, one of the top five graduate business schools in the world, and the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at Tuck Business School at Dartmouth University. He also sits on the board of directors of Affinity², the Girls and Boys Town of Southern California and Concours Consulting Group and spent three years on the Board of Trustees of La Jolla Country Day School.