David Jackson
David Jackson works with global companies and non-profit organizations to improve leadership performance and drive results. As a Partner with Oliver Wyman Leadership Development, he collaborates with clients in leading-edge executive education and development—working along the full value change of organizational learning, from needs assessment to design to delivery to measurement.
David also serves as an executive coach and in expert in change management, organizational culture, and workforce engagement. He has published the results of successful case studies for his work with Doosan, in the 2009 Pfeiffer Leadership Annual, with Shell and Bechtel, in Strategic Communication Management, and with QIAGEN, in World at Work. David served on the research team that developed the definitive Conference Board white paper and research report on Measuring the Value of Training in the Era of Intellectual Capital (Report No. 1199-97).
Prior to Oliver Wyman, David served for many years as a Worldwide Partner at Mercer, the preeminent global HR consultancy. At Mercer, David specialized in connecting executive learning programs to ongoing leadership performance, change management, and rewards processes to ensure that improved performance is sustainable and a key driver of measurable business outcomes.
David has led many assignments in Asia, the Middle East, and UK/Europe, developing a deep expertise in the interplay of different regional and corporate cultures during times of transformative change. He helped FedEx APAC extend operations into mainland China, the Qatar Foundation better equip managers to blend Emirati and expatriate workforces, QIAGEN assimilate US and other acquired assets into a strong German business culture, and Alcan map out leadership processes to drive the success of a Swiss multinational subsidiary. David takes a pragmatic approach to learning strategy formation and execution. He is known for a friendly, hands-on approach that engages teams at all levels and leads quickly to results.
David began his business career as a global manager in Aon’s corporate training and development function, where he designed and delivered soft skills and technical training and worked with the CEO to prepare global strategy meetings for executive management. This experience gave him a life-long appreciation for the pressures and expectations placed on chief learning officers and senior HR leaders. Before that, he taught communications at Columbia University, the Frost School of Business at Centenary College, and was visiting professor of management communications at Aarhus University, Denmark. David has a PhD from Columbia University, where he was a distinguished President’s Fellow and serves on the Graduate School Alumni Board.
He has a BA in German and English from Occidental College, where he serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors. He and his wife Patricia are active in adult education programs and initiatives in their home community of Baltimore and nationally, focusing on issues of spirituality and literature in cross-cultural contexts.