David Howard

About David Howard

I’m a strategy and operations leader with 10+ years of experience driving growth for B2B/B2C tech, SaaS, marketplace, and media companies, both as a consultant at a McKinsey-founded boutique and as an in-house operator at Atlassian. My work has consistently focused on using strategic thinking and analysis to translate ambiguous business questions into clear recommendations that drive measurable outcomes.I’ve worked across both senior IC and people leadership roles, leading teams of 8+ while staying deeply hands-on in the work: building models, conducting analyses, developing executive narratives, and driving cross-functional execution. I’ve partnered with executive teams to define, scope, and implement initiatives across four core areas: & : White-space identification, product and business roadmaps, funnel and customer journey assessments, competitive analysis, market sizing, customer segmentation, financial modeling, and executive narratives & : Forecasting, monthly business reviews, AI-enabled workflows, dashboard creation, process automation, P&L modeling, SQL analysis, and KPI/OKR development and tracking - & : Pricing strategy and testing, including conjoint analysis and A/B tests; build/buy/partner frameworks; sales and GTM operating model redesign; incentive structures; change management; workflow optimization; and territory planning & & : Buy- and sell-side diligence, market assessments, customer research, risk and trend analysis, investor materials, and scenario forecastingMy academic background is in engineering, and I’m especially interested in how AI is reshaping business models, customer value propositions, and operating workflows. I’ve co-authored thought leadership in The Wall Street Journal and use AI tools as part of my daily workflow.

Experience

1. Strategy and Operations, Growth

   Atlassian

   Jan 2025 — Present · New York, NY, US

   Drive strategy and business operations for the product-led growth flywheel for Teamwork Collection (TWC), including Jira, Confluence, Loom, and the TWC bundle. Business operations, select examples include: • MONTHLY BUSINESS REVIEWS (MBRs): Proactively automated monthly business review deliverables for SVP-level audience, including reporting tables and performance-driver waterfalls, saving the team 8+ hours per month, improving accuracy, and earning SVP recognition in my first two months• FORECASTING: Rebuilt core forecasting components for newly launched bundle offering, creating model structure, inputs, and executive summary in partnership with product and data science; earned “Big Kudos” recognition for above-and-beyond impact• DASHBOARDS: Designed and built dynamic dashboards for weekly cross-functional leadership reviews (~30 attendees), enabling faster reads on Jira and Confluence performance, surfacing upstream data-pipeline issues, and shortening meetings by ~30% Strategy, select examples include:• BUSINESS STRATEGY: Led new customer acquisition strategy for Jira, a $1B+ ARR business, owning the executive narrative, analysis of performance trends and root-cause drivers, scenario planning, and recommended actions for senior leadership up to the C-suite• AI STRATEGY: Helped shape AI strategy for Jira and Confluence in partnership with product and marketing leaders, using competitive analysis, funnel insights, and experiment tracking to prioritize initiatives such as AI-enabled onboarding personalization• PRODUCT STRATEGY: Within 2 weeks of joining, led a full-funnel diagnostic of decline drivers in the new product customer journey and wrote the executive narrative, helping identify and resolve multiple major data issues and reprioritize experiments

Education

• Rice University

  Bachelor of Science, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

  2009 — 2013

• Harbin Institute of Technology

  Intensive Chinese Language

  2011 — 2011

Skills

• Fortran
• Analysis
• Polymath
• Data Analysis
• Microsoft Office
• Analytical Skills
• Mandarin
• Matlab
• Spanish
• Leadership
• Statistics
• Process Simulation
• Chemcad
• Epanet