David Zapol
Overview
David has 15 years experience working with a broad range of issues with private, corporate, nonprofit, and community foundations.
Role at FSG
David’s work largely focuses on international health and development, both large and small. For the last five years David has played a central role in the Global Health practice area and has led a team advising a billion-dollar portfolio of grants for HIV, and another team developing private sector investments in the poorest district of Rwanda. David has worked with several pharmaceutical clients developing philanthropic strategies and designing international programs. His work also has included advising a local community foundation on education strategy and developing a set of lessons from ten years of grantmaking with the leadership of a domestic private foundation.
Before FSG
Before joining FSG, David worked with the Earth Institute on private sector solutions to global health issues, and with Investors’ Circle developing Slow Money, a grassroots effort to finance sustainable food and agriculture. He also worked in product marketing at Pharsight Corporation, a firm providing consulting and software services to pharmaceutical clients. He is a volunteer board member for Worldbike, and is a volunteer at the newest public school in San Francisco.
Education
- MIT, SB in Biology
- Stanford, MS in Immunology
- Columbia University, MBA/MPH
Affiliations
- Global Health Council
- International AIDS Society
Languages
- Fluent in English
- Understand and can speak some French
On Working at FSG
"I am dedicated to my work because people’s lives are at stake. I am at FSG because here I can make a difference in many lives, alongside the brightest colleagues, clients, and collaborators. I am inspired by the mix of insightful thinkers, leaders of corporations, and mud-between-the-toes aid workers. The rigor with which FSG approaches our work ensures that we have access to the best thinking on the toughest issues of our time, and that we have the tools to push that thinking further. I am also here because it is fun — the vitality from our work keeps me fired up, whether to design a new way to drive efficiencies in global health system, to solve our local school system’s leadership challenges, or to enable another billion-dollar corporation to see that they can do so much more than give grants."