David Johnson has decades of experience at esteemed multinational organizations which have given him the knowledge and expertise to provide valuable insight and guidance. Currently, Mr. Johnson operates as a Senior Advisor for the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s leading investment firms with over $340B in assets under management. Since joining Blackstone in 2013 as a Senior Managing Director, he has led a numerous M&A deals including the 2014 acquisition of Accuvant, an information and security provider. Under Mr. Johnson’s leadership, Accuvant merged with FishNet to create Optiv, one of the largest private cyber security companies in the world.
Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Johnson served as Senior Vice President of Strategy at Dell Corporation. Here, he was responsible for corporate strategy, corporate development and acquisition integration. During his time at Dell, Mr. Johnson oversaw more than a dozen acquisitions totaling $20+ billion and helped transform Dell into an industry leader in software, cloud computing and data security. Mr. Johnson led the acquisition of Perot Systems, an IT services provider, one of Dell’s largest acquisitions in their history. Additionally, he was responsible for Dell’s first ever-Israeli acquisition when he oversaw the purchase of Exanet in 2010.
Prior to Dell, Mr. Johnson spent 27 years at IBM, where he held various corporate development and finance roles including Vice President of Corporate Development. At this role, he was responsible for IBM’s acquisitions, divestitures, minority investments and acquisition integration. During the latter part of his career, Mr. Johnson led all M&A activity, including the $3.5B acquisition of PwC’s consulting arm in 2002. In addition, he oversaw the acquisition of multiple Israeli companies including XIV, an enterprise storage company, which was ultimately acquired for $300M.
Currently, Mr. Johnson sits on various Boards as well. Glilot Capital Partners, where he is the Chairman of the Board of Experts, is a Herzliya-based early stage venture fund. Mr. Johnson joined this Board while acting as an Advisor across all of Blackstone’s investments group. While operating at the same Advisor role, he also joined Cloudreach, a London-based cloud computing business, as their Chairman. He is also an active Board Director for Mphasis, an IT services company based in India; Cylance Inc., an American software firm; and Pactera, a Chinese IT outsourcing company.
Mr. Johnson earned his B.A. in English and his M.B.A. in Finance from Boston College.