David Altman, PhD

Current Role

David Altman is CCL’s Executive Advisor and a member of the executive team. His areas of expertise include leadership development, community development, evaluation research, health promotion and disease prevention, and public health.

David maintains an active portfolio of direct client work and focuses on senior leadership teams and global leadership development.

Experience

David has held 5 different executive team positions at CCL. Prior to his current role, he served for 2 years as the Chief Research & Innovation Officer and 5 years as the Chief Operating Officer (COO), a job that involved leading our work in EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. He also led the Global Sales Pursuit Team and several verticals.

Before becoming COO, David spent 4 years living in Brussels, Belgium, where he served as Executive Vice President & Managing Director of our EMEA region. Previously, he was Executive Vice President of our Research, Innovation & Product Development group for 9 years. Early in his tenure at CCL, he also led Information Technology, Portfolio Solutions, and Global Operations. He is co-executive sponsor of 2 CCL Employee Resource Groups — Black Professionals and Veterans.

Prior to joining us, David was a tenured Professor of Public Health Sciences and Pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Senior Research Scientist at the Stanford Prevention Research Center at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.

David is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He has long been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). For 5 years, he served as co-director of the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows Program. For 15 years, he was National Program Director of the RWJF Substance Abuse Policy Research Program. For 4 years, he was Co-National Program Director of the RWJF Ladder to Leadership Program.

In 1997, he was selected as one of 40 Americans for a 3-year W.K. Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Program. As part of this program, he rode his bicycle from California to North Carolina to raise public awareness about hunger and endowment funding for an international hunger relief organization.

Education

David earned a PhD and MA in Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine, and a BA in Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Between his MA and PhD, he had an internship at the Office of Cancer Communications, National Cancer Institute (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. In 2007, he was selected as Alumni of the Year at the School of Social Ecology. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine in cardiovascular disease prevention and epidemiology.

At CCL, he has attended the following programs: Leadership Development Program (LDP)®, Leading Creatively, Developing Leadership Talent, Assessment Certification, Coaching Certification Workshop, and Leadership at the Peak.

Professional Affiliations & Publications

David is active in several professional associations. He is a Fellow of 3 divisions (9, 27, 38) of the American Psychological Association. He is also a member of the American Public Health Association, the Society of Public Health Education, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

He has served on a variety of community task forces and boards. He has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters, as well as 5 books, including Discovering the Leader in You, and has been part of leadership teams that secured over $50 million in extramural funding.