Shawna David

Building human and organizational capability for a changing world. I help leaders build the operating systems, learning conditions, and workforce capabilities required to perform as technology, work, and opportunity evolve.

Work with me Speaking and media

Shawna David is an executive operator and organizational-performance strategist focused on how people and organizations build the capability to perform as technology reshapes work, opportunity, and human potential.

Across more than two decades inside Apple, Shopify, Export Development Canada, and high-growth technology companies, she has worked at the intersection of commercial strategy, operational systems, learning science, leadership, and human performance.

Her work focuses on the structural gap between what organizations want to achieve and what their people, workflows, leadership practices, and operating systems are prepared to deliver: how knowledge flows through the system, and where growth, transformation, and go-to-market performance depend on people changing how work gets done.

Shawna helps leaders identify where performance breaks down and build the capability, systems, rhythms, and trust required to turn strategy into measurable outcomes.

She extends that work through speaking, writing, advisory work, fata.dev, and Leaders in Learning, a CMA Gold-winning platform exploring learning, capability, performance, and the future of work.

Built in the real world

Operating credibility across enterprise, growth, public, and builder environments.

The work is shaped by direct experience close to people, capability, commercial outcomes, operating change, and the pressure of making strategy work at scale.

20+ yearsOperating across strategy, commercial execution, organizational capability, technology, and transformation
Global organizationsExperience spanning Apple, Shopify, Export Development Canada, and growth-stage technology companies
Enterprise scaleBuilt systems and programs supporting tens of thousands of employees and leaders across markets
Commercial outcomesConnected capability work to revenue, adoption, productivity, retention, and operating efficiency
Builder experienceCo-founder of fata.dev and host of Leaders in Learning, a CMA Gold-winning platform on AI, learning, capability, and the future of work
Public platformSpeaking, writing, hosting, and executive conversations on AI, work, learning, and human performance
Framework

Heads + Hands + Hearts is the method that emerged from the work.

After more than two decades leading change across complex organizations, I examine performance through three interconnected conditions: whether people can understand, execute, and sustain the work.

01

Heads

Do people understand the context, the priorities, the decisions, and the tradeoffs well enough to move without waiting?

02

Hands

Do they have the systems, practice, tools, and rhythms to turn capability into repeatable execution?

03

Hearts

Do they trust the direction, believe the work matters, and have enough energy to stay with change when it gets hard?

The shift

Most transformation efforts overinvest in communication or technology while underestimating the system shaping whether people can understand, execute, and sustain the change.

Why this work

The throughline is learning as a force for performance, agency, and opportunity.

The work is grounded in a simple belief: people often have more potential than the systems around them know how to unlock.

I did not build my career through one conventional discipline. I moved across commercial strategy, enablement, operations, technology, learning, leadership, communications, and organizational change, often entering rooms where I was not the obvious choice. That outsider perspective became useful: it taught me to learn quickly, challenge inherited assumptions, and see the systems surrounding performance.

Across organizations and markets, I kept seeing the same pattern. Smart people, strong intentions, and useful information were not enough. Performance improved when people had the context to make sense of the work, the practice and systems to execute it, and the trust to keep going when change became hard.

That belief runs through my operating work, advisory work, speaking, writing, Leaders in Learning, and fata.dev: build the conditions for more people and organizations to learn, adapt, and perform as the world changes around them.

Where I work

Organizational performance, technology adoption, commercial execution, and leadership systems.

Every engagement connects back to the same question: what capability, workflow, leadership, and operating system does the organization need now?

Organizational performance

Translate priorities into execution

Operating models, decision systems, cross-functional rhythms, and execution practices that help teams perform through complexity.

Emerging technology + capability

Build the technology-capable organization

Identify how emerging technology changes roles, workflows, skills, and judgment, then build the human and organizational capability required to use it well.

Commercial + GTM performance

Connect capability to outcomes

Enablement, customer education, process, technology, and leadership systems that improve how commercial teams execute and scale.

Learning infrastructure

Make learning part of the work

Knowledge, workflow, leadership, and performance-support systems that build capability where decisions and execution actually happen.

Writing

Ideas for a changing world.

Analysis and observations on technology, work, organizational capability, leadership, learning, and human performance.

Leaders in Learning

Learning is dynamic, unifying, and messy

Behind-the-scenes notes from conversations with leaders shaping the future of work.

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 Builder Notes

Education is not a nice-to-have. It is an engine.

Why customer education, enablement, community, and digital CS are converging around outcomes.

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 Leadership

The outsider perspective can become the edge

Challenge assumptions, spot patterns, learn fast, and focus on impact over fitting in.

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 Future of Work

Learning belongs in the flow of work

Performance improves when people can learn, apply, assess, refine, and repeat where work actually happens.

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Conversations

Hosted conversations with leaders shaping learning and work.

Through Leaders in Learning, I explore how AI, learning, leadership, and human performance are reshaping the future of work with the people building what comes next.

Leaders in Learning episode preview Watch episode

For leaders building capability for what comes next.

I work with CEOs, executive teams, commercial leaders, and people and capability leaders navigating growth, transformation, technology adoption, and the future of work.

Executive advisoryOrganizational performance, technology adoption, workforce capability, commercial transformation, and operating systems.
Speaking + briefingsKeynotes, panels, executive briefings, media commentary, hosting, and moderated conversations.
Selective operating workLeadership roles and strategic mandates where capability, execution, and change need to come together.
Connect on LinkedIn Watch Leaders in Learning Build skills with fata.dev