David M. Gross is the author of Fast Company, a Memoir of Life, Love and Motorcycles in Italy, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
From 2003 through 2009, Mr. Gross was the Creative Director of Ducati Motor Holding and is credited for turning around the historic marque and turning it into a global high performance brand. He was director of strategic planning from April 1997 to 2000 and a member of the senior management team responsible for the company’s re-launch after its purchase by Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a private equity company, in 1996. From 2000 to 2003, Mr. Gross was responsible for new product development.
At Ducati, Mr. Gross oversaw the company’s global brand and marketing activities, advertising and communications, investor relations, apparel and licensing development, and the Ducati Store concept. He led development of 2000’s neoclassic MH900e, groundbreaking Multistrada 1000 DS in 2003, SportClassic in 2006 and Hypermotard in 2007. In 1999, he was part of the team that led the company’s IPO process, taking the company public on the New York Stock Exchange and Milan’s Borsa Italiana.
He has lectured about motorcycles, transportation design, global branding, and private equity at universities all over the world including: The Rhode Island School of Design, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Chelsea College of Art and Design, the University of Bologna (Economics), Parsons The New School for Design, Pepperdine University (Business School), and The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
He is a turnaround specialist with wide experience in luxury, branded consumer goods, footwear, accessories, sports marketing and has worked with clients including: Tumi, Oakley, Valextra, Testoni, Bally, OMP, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, YSL Beaute among others. Most recently he worked for OMP, the supplier of flame retardant race suits to Formula One.
Prior to joining DMH, Mr. Gross was a corporate finance lawyer with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York from 1993 to 1996. In addition, Mr. Gross has over a decade’s experience as a financial journalist with the New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsday and other publications. In the early 1990s, he cowrote “twentysomething”, a cover story for Time that sparked the Generation X cultural phenomenon. It was one of Time’s best-selling covers of the decade.
He now writes for the International Herald Tribune and other publications.
Mr. Gross has appeared on various television and radio programs including CBS, CNN, CNBC, and the BBC. Mr. Gross was educated at Brown University and the Harvard Law School.
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