David Copithorne

David Copithorne, Principal, is one of the world's leading experts in marketing and communications, with more than 25 years of experience in corporate and financial communications, public relations, consumer and technology marketing, crisis communications, social marketing, journalism and publishing. As co-founder of Copithorne & Bellows Public Relations (C&B), he led one of the fastest-growing high-tech marketing services companies of the 1980s and '90s. Working with venture capital-funded startup companies as well as leaders such as Hewlett-Packard, C&B grew from a two-person Silicon Valley consultancy to a global firm with more than 300 people in 12 offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific.

After C&B was acquired by the publicly held Omnicom Group, Copithorne served from 2000 to 2002 as President and then Global CEO of Omnicom's Porter Novelli International, one of the world's ten largest public relations firms. In addition to work with global consumer, technology and health care companies, he supported Porter Novelli's leadership of the emerging field of social marketing, including its award-winning work with the anti-tobacco Legacy Foundation.

Since 2002, Copithorne has worked as a marketing consultant and investor with startup companies. As part-time Chief Marketing Officer of Outside The Classroom, a venture capital-backed social enterprise pioneering web-based alcohol prevention and online behavioral health management, he led the company to a national PR Week Award for Best Small Corporate Communications Team in 2004. And he has been an unpaid advisor and guest lecturer with the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Copithorne also established a small online publishing business after coping with an episode of sudden hearing loss several years ago resulting in a permanent severe hearing impairment in both ears. HearingMojo.com provides information, news and a support forum for hard-of-hearing consumers and the industry that serves them.

Copithorne graduated from Harvard in 1975 and began his career as a journalist who earned a national reputation for his coverage of the U.S. government's antitrust cases against AT&T and IBM.