David C. Churbuck is a digital media and marketing executive with over 25 years of experience and innovation in print and online businesses.
Since May, 2018 he has beens a Member of the Firm at Sitrick And Company, the premier strategic communications firm. He leads the firm’s technology practice and is the managing director of its Boston office.
Previous he was the Vice-President of Corporate Marketing at Acquia, the Boston-based provider of cloud-based Drupal content management frameworks and digital experience solutions for the Global 2000. At Acquia he managed the corporate communications, web production, and content marketing functions.
He is a founding partner of Eastman Advisors, LLC, where he advises individual and corporate clients on digital marketing, eCommerce, and digital media as part of the firm’s corporate advisory practice.
From 2006-2010 he was Vice-President of Global Digital Marketing at Lenovo: the world’s largest PC manufacturer and home of the ThinkPad and IdeaPad lines of notebook computers. At Lenovo he:
- Was part of the founding CMO’s team following the acquisition of IBM’s PC Division by Beijing-based Legend Computers.
- He ed a global team driving digital strategy, digital advertising, and new models of corporate communications.
- Drove innovation development around cloud computing and future devices, culminating in 2009 CES Best in Show device, Skylight
- Led social media operations, launched the company’s first corporate blogs and provided global social platform and monitoring tools to the company’s country marketing teams.
- Conceived, built and launched Lenovo’s award winning 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics athlete blogging program:
- Lead digital direct demand generation for the company ecommerce sites from 2006 to 2009
- Managed web metrics and analytics from 2006 to 2009
Churbuck founded Forbes.com and set Forbes’ new media strategy from 1994 to 2000. He was the site’s first editor, acting publisher, and technical director. He was editor during the “Shattered Glass” scandal in 1998. Forbes.com remains one of the world’s leading business/financial news sites.
In 2000 he joined McKinsey & Company as the global management consulting firm’s first Chief Content Officer to launch an online publication for the firm’s e-commerce and media clients: TomorrowLab. While at the firm, he formed and led the team which created one of the earliest secure proprietary platforms for the creation, management and distribution of digital audio and video , leading a transformation of the firm’s business knowledge management system: Business Knowledge Services. He continues to advise McKinsey on digital marketing and business technology issues across multiple practices including Digital Marketing, Pharmaceuticals and IT.
From 2002 through 2004 he was the Zurich-based managing director of a Lichtenstein-based online consortium of independent wealth advisors: 21i.net, setting that consortium’s strategy for its online interactions with high net worth clients, developing one of the first private social networks and deal-flow exchange systems, and leading 21i.net’s events, newsletter and directory publishing operations across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
In 2005, he joined IDG’s CXO Media as VP/GM of CXO Online, assuming editorial, design, P&L, and strategic responsibility for cxo.com, cio.com, csoonline.com, cmomagazine.com and darwinmag.com. During his tenure at CXO, online revenues and traffic increased dramatically and CIO.com won the American Business Media 2006 Jesse Neal award for best website.
Churbuck’s journalism career began as a reporter at the Cape Cod Times in 1980, then as political editor and Massachusetts statehouse bureau chief for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune where he covered the 1984 Presidential election and national party conventiuons. In 1985 he joined PC Week, covering LANs, software, and launching its business coverage before becoming its News Editor in 1986.
He joined Forbes in 1988 as senior technology editor. At Forbes his reporting won several national awards, including: the Computer Press Association’s Business Story of the Year, the National Association of Science Writer’s story of the year, and two first-place awards in consecutive years in the Computer Museum’s Excellence in Technology Communications competition.
In 1995 he founded Reel-Time: The Internet Journal of Saltwater Flyfishing. He was an early innovator in database publishing, online advertising (he invented the “skyscraper” or “tower” ad unit), and sponsorship models, user interface design, and content management systems. The site was sold to Namemedia Inc. in 2007.
In 2004 he was on the launch team of two startups: Foldera, a California-based web services company, advising the company on an ongoing basis on its press and web strategy as a member of its advisory board and its acting CMO; and a Massachusetts bio-tech, Environmental Operating Systems, on business strategy, fund raising, and marketing. He co-authored Multisourcing, A book on outsourcing strategy for a leading global technology research and consulting firm published by Harvard Business School Press in the fall of 2005.
He blogs on random topics ranging from Cape Cod history to digital marketing and e-commerce at Churbuck.com
In 1988 he wrote The Book of Rowing (Overlook, New York) a history of the sport of rowing which was republished in the spring of 2008. He also co-authored the privately published History of the Union Boat Club (2013).
Churbuck is married and has three grown children. His wife Daphne is an owner and founder of Graham Eliot Interior Design of Osterville, MA
Contact: david AT churbuck DOT com
last updated 2018.05.07
I live in Beijing and found your blog in a search for ergometers in Beijing. I used to row in college in Vermont and have been looking for a gym with an ergometer for the past three years, or better yet, a place where I could get into an actual boat from time to time. Any chance you have any leads for people/facilities from your work in Beijing this month? I would be forever indebted!
Thanks,
Lila
I just had to post a comment because I’m on the same journey! Honestly, I even think our writing style is similar. Best of luck in the next 7 months! I have a funny feeling you’re not going to end this year the same way you started it. But we shall see! Good luck. Keep doing it!
Is the Dave Churbuck that I knew through my cousins in Cotuit and then was in TD, ’80? I’m Pierson the same year and was looking thru the Reunion Facebook page.
Indeed!