David brings experience in food systems around the world through McKinsey’s global Agriculture and Sustainability Practices. He helps agriculture and chemicals companies address a broad range of challenges, including setting strategy, building world class customer experiences, transforming performance through digital and advanced analytics tools, and achieving sustainability. David has worked with leaders across the public and private sectors in both developed and emerging markets, including Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America.

Since joining McKinsey, David has addressed opportunities and challenges across the agriculture value chain, from crop inputs to food retail. Against a backdrop of rapid change, he helps companies define successful growth strategies, including building sustainable agriculture business practices. Keenly interested in practical tools that derive insights from big data, David currently coleads McKinsey’s ACRE analytics solution. ACRE offers executives advanced agronomic data and geospatial tools to support evidence-based decision making, with the goal of improving agricultural output. 

Examples of his recent client work include the following:

• designing and building a digital platform for a leading agriculture distributor, including digital agronomy, sales excellence tools, e-commerce capabilities, and an underlying data platform
• helping a grain aggregator restructure commodity supply chains across four continents
• reimagining the customer journey for a priority segment of farmers served by an input manufacturer, including in-person and digital touchpoints
• leading a multiyear commercial transformation for a global input manufacturer, including sales planning, micromarketing, value-based pricing, and agile execution
• transforming the agriculture strategy and investment framework for an East African ministry of agriculture, with pillars focused on food security and economic growth
• supporting a Middle Eastern economy to build an end-to-end food security plan to ensure sustainable food production, trade, storage, and retail
• creating a growth strategy for a leading specialty fertilizer and agrochemical company, achieving incremental EBITDA from new products and integrated solutions for growers
• assessing global growth opportunities and building market entry partnership strategies for a leading agriculture conglomerate in Africa, Australia, Eastern Europe, and  South America

Committed to food security at home and abroad, David facilitates a CEO working group on sustainable agriculture growth in Minnesota, and also serves on the board of Second Harvest Heartland in Minneapolis. Before joining McKinsey, he was a research consultant for the World Bank, and spent time as a Fulbright scholar living in Uganda, where he worked with the Ministry of Agriculture.