Wm. David Levesque has nearly 40 years of progressive leadership experience in operations, general management and strategic projects leadership. A graduate of General Motors Institute (considered the West Point of the automotive industry), he served across a wide range of functional roles during a period of rapid transformational change in technology, products, processes, systems and culture.  During this same period, the auto industry was discovering Just-In-Time concepts, the modern-day Lean. These experiences have shaped his career path.

David has successfully applied his approach to Lean at large companies like General Motors, Bausch & Lomb and Valeo, as well as much smaller firms – some family owned businesses. As a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, with professional certifications in operations management, project management, new product development, Business Model Canvas, and Net Promoter Score^®, he has guided Lean and business process re-engineering efforts at many companies, utilizing Theory of Constraints to surgically apply Lean tools to generate sustainable competitive advantage. His approach has proven successful across a range of company functions including sales, marketing, finance, IT, forecasting, production, quality, supply chain, HR, customer service, strategic planning, policy deployment and leadership development.

David is President of The Alternative Board – Rochester and Lean Performance Development, Inc. In both capacities, his focus is working with business owners to enhance the capabilities of their businesses through streamlined processes, stronger employee empowerment and high-performance mindsets. His bias is to focus on the critical few versus the trivial many, preferring to waterfall actions so that earlier successes create the momentum for later achievements with minimal incremental risk, investment or lead-time.