David McNeill, Principal
David’s approach to development is built on 30 years of experience managing a diversified mix of businesses and serving in a wide-range of leadership and managerial roles. His broad spectrum of experience includes CEO/President for mid-market private and public companies, consultant, Managing Director and Operating Partner for private equity funds, start-up CEO, coach and trainer. David has built a record of consistently producing positive results by solving complex business problems and enabling great teams. He is also recognized as a servant leader who possesses skills others appreciate and respect.
Mid-Market Private and Public Company Operator: David invested many years as CEO/President for four very different privately held mid-market companies where he was responsible for hundreds of employees and all facets of the businesses. His experiences included a family owned business selling maintenance supplies across the US and Canada, a private equity owned business selling public safety products across the US and another private equity owned business selling medical products online. David also helped run a TPG Capital publicly-traded portfolio company in the telecom sector. Currently, he is the CEO if a private equity backed SaaS company.
Consultant: David was a senior manager at Bain & Company in the Dallas, London, and Atlanta offices leading projects across multiple industries including airline, defense, retail, automotive, and nuclear services. His work at Bain was equally distributed across growth strategy, operational improvement, and M&A/post-merger integration.
Private Equity: Today, David works as an Operating Partner for two different funds. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Prophet Equity, a mid-market, industrial sector focused fund out of Texas. He was also a member of TPG Capital’s Operations Group in San Francisco, ultimately moving into a full-time operating role within one of its portfolio companies.
Start-Ups: David was CEO and founder of two businesses. Both of these start-ups were sold to $1B+ global companies and both earned 50X+ returns for their investors. One of them placed in the top 5% of the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Best Small Business to Work for Challenge” predicated, in part, on building and sustaining an extraordinary culture.
Coach and Trainer: David has a passion for coaching, training and leadership development. For nearly a decade David has led new cohorts through a yearlong Spiritual Leadership program in the US and in Costa Rica. While at Bain & Company, David was given responsibility for the redesign and management of one of Bain’s six worldwide training programs focused on problem solving, communications, and leadership. He has also spoken on entrepreneurship and leadership in various business school programs.
David began his career as a sales representative for IBM and also spent time in the global marketing department of The Coca-Cola Company. He is a graduate of Auburn University and has an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, their four daughters, and their two golden retrievers. In addition to family time, he enjoys competing in extreme sports and is an avid reader of history, religion, sociology, and leadership.