David Shackleton

David serves the EMKS Board of Directors and acts as Special Advisor to the President and Executive Vice President. In his former role as Chief Operating Officer, it was his leadership, strategic planning, technical acumen, and expertise in program operations that was key to the company’s growth and positioning. 

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Prior to joining EMKS, David served as the Director of National Security for Buchanan & Edwards (B&E) where he led a combined National Security business unit (Department of Defense [DoD]/Department of Homeland Security [DHS]) and Law Enforcement (Department of Justice [DOJ]/Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI]) focused on a broad range of IT programs supporting major government agencies. Prior to that, David served in portfolio and program management roles at Harmonia Holdings Group, Inalab Consulting, and CGI Federal where he focused on DoD contracts supporting complex transitions, modernizations, and full-scope software development lifecycle (SDLC) programs.

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David’s civilian career is complemented by a 20-year career in the Marine Corps where he worked within the Strategic Planning and Operations community at distinguished posts and commands, including the Pentagon. While at Marine Corps Headquarters (HQ), he served in three simultaneous positions as the Marine Corp’s Plans, Policies and Operations (PP&O) Force Deployment Chief, Plans Chief, and as the 05xx Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) Occupation Field Sponsor. Within that role, David was responsible for the Marine Corps’ exclusive operations planning and execution community which contained more than 400 Marines formally trained to plan and execute military operations. He oversaw all operational training programs and worked with Manpower for strategic global personnel placement, formal MOS-producing education programs, follow-on training, MOS promotion plans, retention budgeting, forecasting, and career workforce retention. His last assignment was at Marine Corps Systems Command where he managed and executed multiple consecutive and highly successful Agile SDLC contracts for the Marine Corps’ primary Force Deployment Planning and Execution system. Within this role, David performed all duties as the government’s Product Owner, Program Manager, and Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

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David’s passion for operations stems from 30 years of experience within a challenging and complex organizations and agencies. His combined military and civilian operations experience provides a holistic approach to business operations. As the world of agile matured within the business and IT community, David focused intently on learning, implementing, and mastering the leading Agile, DevOps, and Lean Portfolio Management methodologies. His focus ensures that the entire scope of business operations revolves around sound principles and processes which support emerging technologies and rapidly changing customer needs. David is a certified Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Program Consultant (SPC) and Validated Trainer. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Liberty University and reinforced his Agile education with over a dozen professional certifications from industry-leading organizations such as the Project Management Institute, Scaled Agile, the Aveta Business Institute, Kanban University, and Scrum Alliance.