In this wide-ranging conversation, David shares his journey through BladeLogic, BMC, MongoDB, and his current role leading value at a growing cybersecurity company. Drawing from over two decades of experience across pre-sales and value leadership, he explores the evolution from traditional value consulting to a broader, more scalable vision of value engineering—one that influences not just sales, but marketing, product, and customer success.

David makes a powerful case for treating the business case not as a late-stage artefact, but as a decision tool that guides both buyer and seller toward mutual understanding. He unpacks why value engineering must scale beyond deal support, how to coach champions to sell internally, and how the value narrative differs when selling to CFOs versus practitioners. He also shares his take on when to build a value function, how to layer it into a 50-person GTM team, and why AI will enhance—but not replace—the judgment and coaching required to build trust-based business cases.