David Firth
Professor of consulting
About me
Dr. David Firth is a professor of Management Information Systems at the College of Business at the University of Montana.
David's main contribution to the College of Business is his nationally recognized Introduction to Consulting class. This class has launched hundreds of students in to careers in consulting. The vast majority of these students make well above the average salaries for graduates of the business school.
David is recognized as The Godfather of ATG Missoula. ATG Missoula is an international consulting firm based in Missoula, Montana. As The Godfather, David worked with the Tom Stergios, who was at the time living in Missoula but working for ATG out of Kansas. David convinced Tom that if he opened up an office in Missoula he would be able to hire students from David's Introduction to Consulting class that would be some of the best hires he had ever seen. Tom started with two students, who were so good he came back quickly for more. Now Tom is close to his 100th hire in less than six years.
KPMG Advisory has recognized the talent coming out of David's Consulting classes. as well. The University of Montana is a Top-30 school for KPMG Advisory to hire from, out of over 2,500 4-year U.S. universities, and alongside universities like Penn State, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley and UCLA.
David has a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA where he graduated with a 4.0 GPA.
Before his Ph.D. David was a Managing Director in the San Francisco office of KPMG's Information Technology consulting practice. He was the lead consultant on some of the firm's largest and most important clients, including the worldwide VISA engagements and Wells Fargo. He also served a large number of small startup technology firms. He brings this vast real-world experience in to the Udemy lectures to show students what it consulting is really all about.
Before working with KPMG, David was an audit manager in Dallas, TX and before that London with the international accounting and consulting firm E&Y.
David has an undergraduate (Honours) and master's degrees in Physics from Oxford University in England.