David Gard
As executive director of the IU Office of the Vice President for Engagement, David Gard is charged with leading statewide economic engagement efforts, promoting new business collaborations and ventures, developing strategic partnerships across regional markets, and supporting the transfer of IU-generated technology advances into commercial opportunities. He brings to the position a unique blend of experience in both the public and private sectors and across multiple functional areas.
Gard’s efforts actively support Innovate Indiana, President Michael McRobbie’s signature initiative to leverage IU’s vast resources and expertise across its eight campuses, and throughout the state, to strengthen Indiana’s economic vitality. Gard created, implemented, and leads IU’s Council on Regional Engagement and Economic Development (CREED), establishing a statewide network of university resources to address substantive issues of economic significance facing the state and its regional communities. Through sharing of best practices and transfer of knowledge across campuses, CREED plays an instrumental role in identifying how IU can effectively enhance economic development efforts across Indiana.
Before joining IU’s Office of Engagement in 2008, Gard served in the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), the state’s lead agency for job creation, as deputy director of Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Indiana’s 21st Century Research and Technology Fund. The fund’s portfolio included more than $75 million invested in 60 Indiana ventures developing and commercializing innovative technologies.
Gard’s previous private sector experience includes serving as a venture development manager and business performance consultant with Cinergy Corp. (now Duke Energy) and as corporate trust officer with Fifth Third Bank. Previous areas of focus includes experience in strategic planning, budgeting and forecasting, business plan development and evaluation, economic development, venture capital and investments, and technology incubation, among other areas.
A Greenfield native, Gard earned a BS degree in business economics and public policy from IU’s Kelley School of Business and began his career as a US Navy Supply Corps officer in support of Operation Desert Storm. He later returned to Bloomington to earn an MBA degree with a Certificate in Global Business Achievement from the Kelley School. He currently resides in Carmel and, in his spare time, actively enjoys cycling and swimming.
Contact him at dagard@indiana.edu.
