David Parker

David is a Senior Program Officer in the US Education team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Prior to that he spent 16 years at Microsoft in Finance, Operations, and Sales & Marketing positions. His final role there was as General Manager of Business Strategy & Operations in the Unlimited Potential Group. As a founding member of this team, he helped create the mission and plans for Microsoft to develop new solutions, partnerships and business models to provide relevant, accessible and affordable technology to underserved communities around the world - both in emerging nations and developed countries.

David holds a B.S in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. For the last two years David has served as a coach and judge at the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition held at the University of Washington Foster Business School.

Raised in the Seattle area, David now lives in the Wallingford neighborhood with his wife Karen. David has travelled to 34 countries on six continents and 42 of the US States (and planning to get to the remaining eight sometime soon!). In his spare time he enjoys playing guitar, hacking away at golf, and trying new restaurants and wines.