David Flaschen, who has 20 years of executive experience in the information services industry, joined Castanea Partners as an Operating Partner. Prior to joining Castanea, David was a Managing Director at Flagship Ventures, having joined the firm in 2000. Prior to Flagship, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Thomson Financial, a billion dollar information services company focused on the financial industry.

Previously, David served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Donnelley Marketing Inc., a venture capital-backed consumer information services firm that was acquired by First Data Corporation. Prior to 1995, he was with Dun and Bradstreet for 10 years including serving as the President of AC Nielsen, North America, a company that provides market research, information and analysis to the consumer products and service industries. Prior to AC Nielsen, David was at IMS, an information solutions company for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, where he was a pioneer in software development outsourcing which led to the founding of Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH).

David has served as a Director/Investor of TripAdvisor (purchased by Interactive Corp, NASDAQ: IACI), BuyerZone (purchased by Reed Elsevier NYSE: RUK and ENL), e-Dialog (purchased by GSI Commerce), Affinity Express (purchased by Ayala Corporation PSE: AC), and OnExchange (purchased by The Options Clearing Corp). He serves as a Director and Audit Committee Chair of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ: PAYX) as well as several privately held companies including Maptuit, Panraven, City Voter, and Gold Bamboo. David also serves as an investor and advisor to Affinnova. Black Duck, Azima, and DebtX, David was a founding investor in the management buyout of Survey Sampling, Inc. that was acquired in 2004 by Providence Equity Partners. He is a frequent speaker on Corporate Governance and was cited as one of ten by Corporate Board Member Magazine in “The Next Generation of Directors.”

David has a degree from Brown University and earned an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Between undergraduate and graduate education, David was a professional athlete in the North American Soccer League (NASL). He was a first round draft choice and founding member of the Executive Committee of the NASL Players Association.

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