David Hanson

David Hanson, B.S., J.D., M.B.A., M.Ed., Ed.D.

Dr. David Hanson is the Chief Financial and Operating Officer for The Branson School, located in Marin County, 20 minutes north of San Francisco, CA. He is also a partner with Winthrop & Associates, LLC, a consultancy focused on financial and operational sustainability, as well as legal and risk management for non-profit organizations, colleges and independent schools. Prior to founding joining Branson, Hanson served as the Chief Operating Officer for the Boston office of a global non-profit foundation where he oversaw operations, finance, accounting, investment management, information technology, human resources, and facilities functions. Prior to joining that foundation, Dr. Hanson served Phillips Exeter Academy in dual roles as its Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer. He had responsibility for all financial affairs, information technology, human resources, risk management and legal affairs, as well as facilities and various operating departments (e.g., inn, bookstore, dining services, child care center).

Prior to returning to New England to join Phillips Exeter, Hanson spent 15 years working for large higher education institutions. He served Virginia Commonwealth University, first as the Vice President for Finance and Administration (CFO) and then as the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Hanson spent nearly a decade at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, where he served as the Associate Vice President for Administration and Special Assistant to the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration. In those dual roles, he launched and managed nationally recognized programs and initiatives. He also served as Emory’s Director of Executive MBA Admissions, where he coordinated worldwide marketing strategies and managed communications, admissions, and recruitment for two globally-ranked Executive MBA programs and was part of the launch team for the university’s first hybrid MBA program.

Before his tenure at Emory, Hanson gained nearly a decade of experience in the legal field, including clerking for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia and serving as a Federal Staff Attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, GA. Hanson is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and graduated from the Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville, Virginia. He served for four years as an Assistant Counsel and Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and completed his active duty with an honorable discharge as a captain (O-3). He was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal and a Chief Counsel’s Commitment to Excellence award at the completion of his service.

Hanson is a two-time Fulbright award recipient, having completed a Fulbright Specialist Program grant in Pakistan and a second grant at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Hanson also received a U.S. State Department International Speakers Bureau grant in Croatia. He has served since 2018 as a Peer Reviewer for applicants to the Fulbright Specialist Program for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and World Learning. 

Hanson is a full-scholarship graduate of the University of Tampa’s Sykes College of Business, and earned a J.D. from Ohio Northern University with high distinction as his class valedictorian, also on an academic merit scholarship. He holds master’s degrees in education and business from the University of Florida and Emory University, respectively, and earned his doctorate in education management from the University of Pennsylvania, which he completed with distinction in his dissertation defense. His dissertation examined the allocation of resources within educational institutions based on central banking principles using a pareto optimization theory. He has taught classes and given presentations at institutions across the globe, and his articles have appeared in publications like NASPA's Net Impact Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the University of Tampa Journal. He currently volunteers for various nonprofit organizations and runs marathons to raise money for those organizations.