Professional Summary
CEO, Hurricane Lotus, Inc - hurricanelotus.com
CEO & Founder, Maya PBC - mayahealth.com
CIRO, Joint Venture Card Holdings - Presentation
Co-founder & Director, Unlimited Sciences (Non-profit)
Co-founder & CPO, Baker Technologies (Acquired)
Accomplishments
Five-Time Serial Entrepreneur With $250MM Exit & Public Listing - Baker Technologies
Fundraising Experience Up To $120MM, M&A Experience Up To $1.45Bn Market Valuation - TILT Holdings
Mental Healthcare Revolutionist - Maya Health
Nominated As “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Microdose Community.
Nonprofit Research Philanthropist - Unlimited Sciences
Co-leader of the First US Psilocybin Ballot Initiative - Denver Psilocybin Initiative
Architect & Contributor to the Ground Zero Masterplan - Studio Daniel Libeskind
Summa cum Laude with First Class Honors in Architecture - University Of Cambridge
NGO Founder, Funding Construction for Schools in Kenya - ZAA Create
Loving Husband and Father, Designer, Technologist, Painter, Pianist, and Athlete
Purpose
David is the CEO of Hurricane Lotus, the Financial Technology Ecosystem for the emergent Behavioral Health Marketplace of Psilocybin & Ibogaine service providers, and the people they serve.
Prior, David founded Maya PBC, a real-world evidence platform designed to power the ecosystem of providers, scientists, and legislators at the frontier of mental healthcare.
Leveraging his fine art, architecture, and phenomenology education and a fascination for philosophy, psychology, and technology, he has successfully founded and led five companies, conducted impactful academic research, and instigated substantial public policy reform.
As Co-Founder of Unlimited Sciences, a psychedelic research nonprofit, he funded and designed academic research investigating naturalistic psilocybin use across a population of 8,000 in a three-year observational study in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
In 2019, David served as a campaign lead in the Denver Psilocybin Initiative, helping Denver become the first US city to reform psilocybin mushroom policy.
David completed his first successful exit through an M&A roll-up as Co-founder & CPO at Baker Technologies, achieving a valuation of $250MM. Leading a 100-person team, he helped Baker scale at 14% month-over-month in its first 20 months after launch to achieve a 50%+ market share of SMBs in the early cannabis sector.
Upbringing
Brought up in Papua New Guinea, Portugal and Scotland, David was a pianist, top marksman, ski racer, and oil painter, graduating top of his class from George Watsons Academy. His late mother, Felicity Champion graduated summa cum laude as a mature student in Hospitality Management and Viniculture from Napier University, and his sister Nathalia Gjersoe PhD is a professor of Developmental Psychology at University of Bath.
In 2005, together with his mother, great-uncle, and cat, David migrated to the Mualuganje Elephant Sanctuary in the Shimba Hills, Kenya, where they formed a nonprofit, ZAA Create, to fund uniforms and books for children in the community.
Age 22, David was invited to begin his career in New York City with Studio Daniel Libeskind. As the youngest in a 7 person team designing the World Trade Center (Ground Zero) Masterplan — an opportunity generously presented him by David and Daniel’s shared tutor, Dalibor Vesely; a Czech-born historian and theorist promoting the role of hermeneutics and phenomenology in architecture.
David’s personal interests include: philosophy, psychology, geo-politics, artificial intelligence, oil painting, classical and blues piano, snow sports, kite surfing, sailing, SCUBA diving, community leadership, and mindfulness. Above all, he is devoted to refining his skillfulness in being a fruitional husband to Lana Blum, and evolutionary father to Savana Bloom Champion.
Skills
Innovation Strategy
Efficiency Hacking
Product Design
User Experience Design
Product Leadership
Agile Methodology
Go-to-Market Strategy
Enterprise & B2B Strategy
Diplomacy
Mergers & Acquisitions
Neuro/Bio Hacking
Culture Design
Education
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Master of Arts, Architecture
Summa cum Laude, 2009
