David is a biologist who has 27 years of experience in not-for-profit and conservation organizations. He has been the Executive Director and Curator of a small zoological conservation NGO, and in 1995 joined the staff of Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada) to form the Canadian Botanical Conservation Network, which operated for approximately 20 years. He was a contributing writer to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, to the North American Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy, wrote the Canadian national response to the GSPC ,and a Canadian botanical gardens biodiversity action plan. He has extensive experience with organizational development, management of committees and boards, and developing collaborative approaches for conservation. In addition to serving as the Head of Science for Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada), David is an adjunct biology professor at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada).