David Dodson has been active for thirty years in the management and formation of new businesses and is the author of the best selling book The Manager’s Handbook. After graduating from Stanford GSB, as a case writer he wrote the original course material for search funds — then in its infancy. After one year as a case writer, Dodson raised his own search fund, which led to the purchase of a company in 1989. He subsequently raised two more search funds that resulted in acquisitions and has served as CEO of a technology manufacturer and Executive Chairman of a telecommunications firm. Dodson is an active investor, investing in over forty businesses, and Dodson has been a director in twenty-one companies.

In 2000 Dodson co-founded Project Healthy Children, which was later re-named Sanku, which has operated in eight African countries. With the help of Stanford’s Extreme Affordability program, Sanku invented the only successful technology to fortify grains in rural mills, and the award- winning technology has saved and improved the lives of millions of rural families in Africa. In 2018, out of concern for the state of our country, Dodson ran for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Wyoming. He is a frequent columnist for The Boston Globe and Casper Star-Tribune, and a regular guest commentator with CNBC and Fox Business News.

Believing that access to voting is a basic right, in 2020, Dodson founded StudentVotes.org, to safely empower students to vote safely during the pandemic. Targeting nine key races, StudentVotes was 61 times more effective than an established get-out-the-vote nonprofit (with stronger university ties) at enabling university students in key swing states to vote remotely in the 2020 presidential election, reducing viral spread while empowering students.

David Dodson teaches S355, “Managing Growing Enterprises”, S543, “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition”, and S210 “Managerial Skills.” Dodson is a graduate of Stanford University (Economics ’83, MBA ’87), and a former case writer (1988).