David Lee

Our mission is to accelerate the impact of AI at Cox. To do this, we focus on three enablement mechanisms. 1) Make AI tools safe and accessible. We accomplish this through a series of secure, on-prem versions of leading AI tools like chat, notebook, deep research, and coding. More than 1000 people use our tools every day to increase their productivity and get to better insights more quickly. 2) Enable AI-fluency at scale. Our learning communities and events engage 800+ teammates every month, to deepen their knowledge and speed up the effectiveness of adoption. 3) Tackle frontier problems. Our leading team of AI/ML engineers applies emerging patterns and tools to solve high-value problems across the business.

Led New Venture Incubation within Cox's New Growth division, taking products from concept to commercial launch across five industries — supply chain tracking, gaming, social media marketing, smart energy management, and data insights. Teams achieved 200%+ annual growth rates. We initiated Cox Enterprises' first generative AI exploration, secured the tooling and talent, and delivered four POCs within the first six months — building the technical and governance foundations of what would become the AI & Innovation team.

Ridgemont Equity Partners is a leading, mid-market, founder-friendly, private equity firm based in Charlotte, NC.

Fast Radius is a leading provider of industrial-grade additive manufacturing solutions. They offer discovery, digitization, and launch services for 3D printing and traditional methods.

Served as UPS's first-ever VP of Innovation, building a team and programs to accelerate entrepreneurship, customer co-innovation, human-centered design, and machine learning into UPS’s enterprise growth strategy. "Upstarts" was our flagship internal entrepreneurship program — engaging 2000+ employees worldwide. UPS Ventures was matured to increase the operational impact of the early-stage investments. We launched a collaboration with X, The Moonshot Factory at Alphabet. The exploratory partnership evolved into Project Chorus — an official X moonshot focused on real-time, ubiquitous supply chain visibility. Chorus graduated from X as an independent company in April 2025. While at UPS — my TED Talk “Why Jobs of the Future Won’t Feel Like Work” reached 2 million viewers and became one of the most watched TED Talks of 2017.

Engage is a venture fund and platform that connects landmark companies in Atlanta to support entrepreneurship and venture-backed growth in the Southeast.

Co-founded SunTrust's innovation program, building the frameworks, communities, and competitions that gave thousands of employees permission and resources to solve persistent problems. Our programs spanned the full innovation spectrum: "RISE" took teams from idea to working prototype in three weeks; "Gauntlet" challenged people to build full business plans for the chance to launch an internal startup; "Innovation Friday" used one-day design sessions to launch eight-week implementation sprints — with an 80% success rate across 14 sessions. Launched in 2013, "Adventures in Data Science" brought together software and quantitative minds with business and process experts to apply advanced analytics to accelerate the business. Recognized with every top honor at SunTrust: more than a dozen Performance Excellence Awards (top 3%) and the Purpose Coin — the company's highest honor, awarded directly by the CEO.

Led special projects in Mortgage, Consumer Banking, and Corporate Functions on behalf of the Chief Operations Officer. Designed, built, and deployed a system that reduced critical loan origination errors by more than 20%, reducing mortgage re-purchase costs by $50+ million annually. Recognized with SunTrust Mortgage Compass Award and SunTrust Performance Excellence Award.

Led the strategic modeling to launch "Personal Retirement Services" as a new business unit within Global Wealth & Investment Management to give Bank of America a stronger position in retirement planning and savings. Post launch, I focused on new product development, leading the development lifecycle from concept to commercialization. Invented two concepts that led to patent applications. Recognized as one of Bank of America's top 50 innovation leaders and awarded the Bank of America Spirit Medallion in 2008.

Served as a direct report to the CAO/COO of retail brokerage, leading strategic initiatives across client retention, sales process design, merger integration, and product strategy for Bank of America's affluent banking and brokerage businesses. Spearheaded a client satisfaction program that produced the largest improvement of any business unit at Bank of America in 2003.

Led venture investments and strategic partnerships with early-stage technology companies. Focused on enabling our Credit & Debit Card and Global Capital Markets businesses. Guided $14 million in direct investments including RediBook, MarketAxess, InCapital, Wildcard Systems, and PaymentNet — several of which went on to become significant public companies. Early in the role, served as technology due diligence lead, supporting $49 mm in investments.

As part of the Strategic Technology Group, I researched emerging internet and mobile technologies, including ATM over internet protocol which was later deployed nationally. Built smart-card, digital certificate application that was demonstrated to the Vice President of the United States.

Joined the bank through its early career leadership development program. Started designing and building intranet applications within a strategic change office. Won 1998 Staff Technology & Services Outstanding Achievement Award.

Earned concentrations in Strategy, Economics, Organizational Behavior, Finance, and Marketing. Dean's Honor List (4X), Teaching Assistant (Managerial Decision Making). Co-Founder of TECH: Technology Entrepreneurship CHicago (Student Group)

Brown College at Monroe Hill, Rotunda Society, Virginia 2020. Summer internships at Merrill Lynch, Jefferson National Bank, Signet Bank, and The Martin Agency.