Bio

David Bressler is Sr. Direc­tor of API Prod­uct and Solu­tions Mar­ket­ing at Axway.

Through­out my career I’ve been focused on using human sto­ries to help peo­ple tie busi­ness dri­vers to tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions, and doing so devel­op a new per­spec­tive to their prob­lems.

I have worked in 27 coun­tries help­ing gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies imple­ment tech­nol­o­gy that increas­es their capa­bil­i­ties and their results. I’m an accom­plished pub­lic speak­er and facil­i­ta­tor with a knack for cre­ative­ly explain­ing com­plex ideas.

I’ve been involved in the inte­gra­tion space since 1995, most­ly work­ing with cus­tomers to help them under­stand how to best lever­age inte­gra­tion for com­pet­i­tive advan­tage.

I received an MBA in inter­na­tion­al busi­ness from NYU Stern School of Busi­ness where I grad­u­at­ed with dis­tinc­tion. I’m also an accom­plished ath­lete and coach; an expe­di­tion cave and ship­wreck div­er, holds black belts in 4 mar­tial arts, and as a mem­ber of the US Karate Team, a two-time medal­ist in the 1989 World Mac­cabi­ah Games in Israel.

OK, enough with the for­mal stuff…

I use my expe­ri­ence to help cus­tomers syn­the­size ideas in order to human­ize the tech­nol­o­gy expe­ri­ence for their cus­tomers.

I’ve applied my sto­ry­telling skills to one of my favorite top­ics, mon­ey. I wrote a book to help peo­ple get past the anx­i­ety of get­ting start­ed invest­ing by telling a human sto­ry about invest­ing. You should read it.

I have trav­eled well over a mil­lion miles, and worked in 27 dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Typ­i­cal­ly, “worked” means sold tech­nol­o­gy into a coun­try (feet-to-dirt), indi­vid­u­al­ly or as advis­er to a sales team, though there have been sit­u­a­tions where I’ve engaged in hands on imple­men­ta­tions as well. Two par­tic­u­lar favorites were kick­ing off a project with the Gov­ern­ment of Sin­ga­pore in 2005, and a project for Siemens in Dres­den in 1998. The Siemens project led to an $8+ mil­lion dol­lar con­tract for TIBCO, in the words of the cus­tomer “because in that one week, I proved we could do every­thing we had been telling them we could do through­out the sales process.” That was the clos­est I’ve ever come to writ­ing code.

Along the way, I’ve spo­ken at a large num­ber of con­fer­ences but regret not keep­ing track! I’m an estab­lished pub­lic speak­er, see for your­self in this video blog.

I spe­cial­ize in align­ing a com­pa­ny’s “tech­nol­o­gy expe­ri­ence” with their strate­gic objec­tives and brand per­cep­tion. I accom­plish this by help­ing to deliv­er tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives that are so in align­ment with cus­tomer behav­ior as to make the tech­nol­o­gy invis­i­ble, and the expe­ri­ence pure “brand immer­sion”. Con­tact or fol­low me (Twit­ter, LinkedIn) if you’re inter­est­ed in hear­ing more.

Other Stuff

I’ve been train­ing non-stop in mar­tial arts since 1980. Through the 80’s, I was a mem­ber of the US Karate Team (video), first with the AAU and lat­er with the USA Karate Fed­er­a­tion.

Switch­ing to Kendo in the ear­ly 90’s, I used the oppor­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed by busi­ness trav­el to train with both the Swedish and Ger­man nation­al teams, as well as sev­er­al oth­er dojos through Europe who were beau­ti­ful­ly wel­com­ing. I’m very grate­ful for their hos­pi­tal­i­ty, even years since, as they were some of the best mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences of my life.

I added iai­do (video) to my reper­toire start­ing in 1999 and it’s my main prac­tice these days. Any­one inter­est­ed in what I get out of iai­do should read Turn­ing the Mind Into an Ally. I found that book acci­den­tal­ly, and it’s a fan­tas­tic intro­duc­tion to med­i­ta­tion.

In about 2016 I began the study of ZNKR Jodo prac­tice. I fig­ured, you have to be a lit­tle off-cen­ter to fight against a samu­rai sword with a lit­tle stick.

You can lis­ten to me talk about a lot of this expe­ri­ence on The Gen­tle Art Pod­cast (I was hon­ored to be first episode!).

In May 2019, eli­gi­ble for the first time, I got to par­tic­i­pate in the Kyoto Taikai. It was a priv­i­lege.

I’ve also had been doing expe­di­tion-class div­ing (video) for quite some time. I’ve dived the famous Andrea Doria. Read about some excit­ing explo­ration I did in Alas­ka, where I was the 13^th div­er ever to dive the depres­sion-era ship­wreck SS Aleut­ian. Where­as train­ing in mar­tial arts was some­thing I acci­den­tal­ly fell into, I’ve always want­ed to be a div­er. I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on dive-ves­sel Seek­er until it went out of busi­ness in 2007. Ah, the sto­ries I could tell. Actu­al­ly, one of my friends has told his sto­ry… and it’s one of my favorite books, Shad­ow Divers.

The Companies I’ve Worked For

• Axway, July 2019 — Present
• CA Tech­nolo­gies, Novem­ber 2013 — Feb­ru­ary 2019
• Soft­ware AG, August 2011 — Octo­ber 2013
• Bar­clays Wealth, Sep­tem­ber 2010 — Feb­ru­ary 2011
• Progress Soft­ware (acquired Action­al), Octo­ber 2002 — August 2010
• Radi­anz (now BT Radi­anz), April 2001 — Sep­tem­ber 2002
• Aether Sys­tems (IPO), June 1999 — Feb­ru­ary 2001
• TIBCO Soft­ware (Teknekron Soft­ware Sys­tems / Reuters; IPO), April 1995 — June 1999
• Bell Atlantic Net­work Inte­gra­tion, April 1994 — April 1995
• Dig­i­tal Net­work Asso­ciates, June 1990 — April 1994
• NeXT Com­put­er, Jan­u­ary 1990 — June 1990