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David Nelms serves as a member of the management team of for-profit and not-for-profit clients.  He works with firms in the areas of Technology and Operations, where he provides services ranging from strategic planning to ongoing management of teams and key initiatives.  David brings over 25 years of experience leading organizational change and managing strategic initiatives related to technology and operations.

Management Experience:

David generally assists clients in the role of CIO, COO, or Chief of Staff.   In these roles, he is responsible for strategic planning, project planning and budgeting, vendor management, leadership development and mentoring, oversight of internal resources, and management of a wide variety of ongoing efforts.  His focus is on helping firms maintain cost effectiveness, ensure regulatory compliance, improve internal efficiencies, enhance strategic use of technology, and maintain alignment of Technology and Operations with corporate objectives and customer needs.

David joined Warren Whitney to build a Technology Practice area after nearly 6 years as Owner and Principal Consultant of Convergent Business Solutions, a Richmond-based management consulting firm providing fractional CIO/COO services for mid-sized businesses across a variety of industries.  As part of the Convergent team, David served clients in a variety of industries, including Banking, Not-for-Profit, Long Term Care, Industrial Services, and NASCAR. Convergent’s focus and reputation, along with David’s leadership experience, made a logical fit for merger with Warren Whitney.

Prior to forming Convergent, David served in senior management roles for a variety of organizations. Most recently, he was Chief Information Officer for First Market Bank, a $1.4B regional bank with over 35 branches.  In this role, he acted as a catalyst for organizational change and built the organization’s first internal IT department.  During his tenure with the organization, he built a high performing internal IT team from scratch, defined and implemented strategies to ensure regulatory compliance, added structure and cohesiveness to the organization’s strategic planning efforts, and dramatically improved stability and capability of the organization’s IT infrastructure.  Strategies implemented within the first 18 months resulted in savings of over $1.2MM in annual operating expenses.  Prior to his role at First Market, David was Assistant Vice President of Store Systems and a corporate officer for Circuit City Stores, Inc., a $10B+ retailer of consumer electronics with over 600 stores nationwide.   In this role, he was responsible for leadership of teams responsible for creation and management of internal hardware and software systems supporting all aspects of the firm’s customer facing retail and inventory management applications.  He was also responsible for leading a $150MM, multi-year legacy systems transformation effort.  In addition to these roles, David has worked with regional, national, and international firms to implement technologies, ensure regulatory compliance, and enhance operating efficiency.

Education and Professional Affiliations:

David received a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.   He serves on the board of Goodwill of Central and Coastal Virginia.  He is an active member of the Rotary Club of Innsbrook.

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