PeterD is the founder and Managing Partner of IntelliVen. He is also a professional CEO, professor, and author with 30+ years of success practically applying operating lessons and behavioral theory to lead and guide public, private, venture-backed, and private equity-owned for-profit, and not-for-profit North American ventures.
Connect with PeterD on LinkedIn
In addition to running technology and service organizations, he serves as an adviser and/or board member who consistently help leaders, teams, and organization reach their potential to perform and grow.
He is particularly skilled at helping top teams develop and align their skill mix and strategy with operations. Peter helps top teams implement governance, performance metric, incentive, and communications programs to ensure acceptance by their organization and success in the marketplace.
Previously, Peter led Carlyle Group diligence and financing of Compusearch (now Unison), a $15M software provider, from introduction to a successful close in just six weeks. He then guided new and existing management as CEO to a smooth transition, implemented financial controls as well as incentive and governance programs, moved from one-product, one-market to many products in two markets.
He led the firm to triple annual revenue, raise margins, and sell for four times invested capital in five years. Peter stayed on as Chairman of the board for another five years at which point the firm was again sold for an internal rate of return over 30%. The firm has exceeded target performance in three successive hold periods, grown to $100M in annual revenue, and been re-acquired by the Carlyle Group.
Previously, he served as director of Touchstone Consulting, a private venture, and also as its President. Touchstone grew during Peter’s involvement from 20 people and $4 million to 130 people and $30+ million when it was sold to SRA (now General Dynamics).
He also served on the board of Aquilent, Inc., financed by Warwick Capital, and as President and COO pulled a $20M unit out of CommerceOne, then a $400 million software company, and transformed and launched Aquilent as a highly successful independent firm now part of Booz Allen Hamilton.
Peter also served on the boards of BTG (now L3 Communications) and Hyperion Software (now Oracle) while in key operating roles with these public companies.
Out of business school, Peter joined American Management Systems, Inc. (AMS) as a startup and helped lead it to grow over twenty years to be a billion-dollar provider of information technology services and enterprise software solutions to major corporations and government agencies from offices in the major cities of North America and Europe. Peter was a member of AMS’s executive operating group with direct responsibility for the Finance Industry practice, which he founded and grew profitably to $175M.
Peter has held Adjunct Professorships at the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, and American University where he developed and taught a course, to Masters students in Business and Organization Development, called Leading Change: Organization Analysis and Strategy based on his book Manage to Lead: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World. His course is now offered online to executive teams as the Manage to Lead Immersion Program.
He also advises the founders and operators of RescueSF and serves on the Board of Advisors to the Commonwealth Honors College which he helped found and where he has served in the role of course lecturer.
Peter earned a BS in Computer Science, Economics, and Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
