David White

Founding Partner

Menlo Coaching

Amsterdam

Netherlands

Net Promoter Score: 9

Consultant Bio

David’s 15-year tech career included executive roles at startups across the SF Bay Area and Europe, during which time he hired, trained, and developed dozens of young professionals. He has been coaching MBA applicants since 2012 with a special focus on developing the right career goals.

“I truly felt David believed in my story (even sending me related news articles for personal interest) and worked hard to ensure my ideas and experiences came through in my essays and interview responses.”

“I want coaching that goes beyond just essay editing, and helps me to succeed in my career.”

In his corporate career, David has supervised more than 100 elite young professionals, preparing them to take on leadership roles early in their careers.

For example:

  • Phil Dance joined David’s team in 2006 as a graduate trainee in digital marketing at the startup Efficient Frontier. David’s guidance as a manager helped Phil to advance within the company to a role as Commercial Director for emerging markets. Phil’s success at Efficient Frontier / Adobe laid the groundwork for his later roles as a country manager for a Google business unit, and his current role as regional SVP for Salesforce.
  • Olivier Lemaire joined in the same graduate trainee role, became the company’s general manager for France, and after leaving the company ran a 50-person media agency in Belgium, and became successful as an entrepreneur in an unrelated area.

You can also see testimonials about David’s career coaching on his LinkedIn profile.

David can help you understand the skills you need to be successful as a general manager with P&L responsibility, and a people manager, and tell you how employers are likely to react to your profile. It goes without saying that David can also guide you through any tough questions about how to approach your managers for recommendations.

His advice will not only help you to articulate clear career goals for MBA admissions, but give you a roadmap for actually advancing in your career.

“David was very helpful in helping me determine my career goals (one of his specialties) and making sure that my applications told a cohesive and compelling story.”

No matter your background–David has worked in supervisory roles at startups, mid-sized companies, PE-owned companies, and publicly traded companies, across the US and Europe — David can help.

“I want a coach who is honest.”

David is famous in the MBA admissions industry for publishing brutally honest commentary like 4 Secrets to Know Before Hiring the “Best MBA Admissions Consultant”.

His clients have said:

  • “David did not mince words, and was very honest and objective with his feedback.”
  • “David is a great resource and is always very candid and helpful in sharing advice and insights.”
  • “I got some honest, valuable inputs from David on my essays.”

“I want to continue or pursue a career in tech or entrepreneurship.”

David has worked in every corner of the tech industry and helped to launch numerous successful ventures.

The first step in David’s tech career was joining startup Efficient Frontier as the #1 full-time employee after the founders, even before the company’s Series A round. In this role, David:

  • Served as day-to-day contact for the company’s major US customers (incl. eBay, Amazon)
  • Acted as a product manager for the company’s forecasting and competitive intelligence products
  • Launched the European business from scratch, growing it to 30+ employees, $7M of annual fee revenue, and $200M of media spend under management

In 2011, Efficient Frontier was sold to Adobe for $400M.

David has also managed intrapreneurial ventures, and helped traditional yellow page directory conglomerate European Directories to launch digital advertising products across eight European countries. These experiences are complemented by several roles at publicly traded Internet companies Yahoo and Travelzoo.

Whether you want to know the nuts and bolts of launching a startup, the difference between business roles in tech (like biz ops, BD, product management, product marketing management, and more), or how your non-tech background might translate into a tech role, David can guide you.

Company Information

If you want to do everything you can to win admission to a top MBA program, and you are ready to do the hard work involved in building your profile and creating great applications, Menlo Coaching can help. We have high standards and will push you hard to uncover every detail that will help you to find your voice and tell your story in the most compelling way possible.

You will never have a blind spot when you work with us. We visit campuses, interview admissions directors (see our blog), and employ a network of students to give us candid feedback about their MBA programs. We know the things that aren’t always discussed openly, like how schools manage their rankings, the side channels through which schools receive feedback on applicants, and more.

Our services combine unlimited 1:1 coaching with a self-paced curriculum that allows you to learn the basics in a way that fits your incredibly busy schedule. We also bring you together with other applicants to build your MBA network and keep your motivation high throughout the process.

To ensure the highest quality of service, we accept only a limited number of clients each year so that we can keep a low ratio of clients to coaches. Contact us as soon as you have committed to pursue an MBA and want to maximize your odds of acceptance.

Menu of Services and Associated Costs

We support applicants across all stages of an MBA application: planning your career goals, selecting schools that will help you achieve those goals, networking effectively with students, staff and alumni, identifying your personal story, and telling it across the many essays, application forms, resumes, and recommendations. Our structured approach means that you’ll always know the answer to the question “What should I be doing NOW to improve my odds of acceptance?”

Our interview preparation combines mock interviews, tailored to each school’s format, with communications training provided by former professional actors. You’ll overcome your interview nerves and will feel confident, authentic and relaxed on the day of the interview.

Even after the interview, we work with you to negotiate your merit-based aid. Although we cannot promise an award for any particular candidate, our clients have received millions of dollars of additional awards based directly on our negotiating strategies.

Finally, we love helping future-year applicants to build their MBA profiles through our “Early Birds” program because taking the right steps now will give you an edge in the competitive application process later.

Location: Amsterdam Netherlands

Email: david@menlocoaching.com

Website: http://menlocoaching.com/

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