Profile

David Bell

President and Co-Founder at Idea Farm Ventures (IFV)

Bio

David is President and Co-Founder at Idea Farm Ventures (IFV), a consumer venture studio based in New York City. Prior to IFV, he had a 20-year academic career at the Wharton School where was a Chaired Professor, award-winning researcher and teacher, and developed Wharton’s first courses on digital marketing and e-commerce. David is an active seed investor in next-generation consumer and retail brands, including Bonobos (acquired by Walmart for $310m), Harry’s (acquired by Edgewell for $1.4b), Jet.com (acquired by Walmart for $3.3b), Quidsi (acquired by Amazon for $545m) and Warby Parker (privately held), among numerous others.David speaks globally on digital marketing and e-commerce for clients including Alibaba, Google, Haier, Nike, and Ralph Lauren. He is also author of Location is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One, an authoritative book on how to win in the digital economy. His academic research is published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, MIT Sloan Management Review and California Management Review. He is a recipient of the Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, POMS Applied Research Challenge First Place Award, WISE Overall Best Paper Award, three John D.C. Little Best Paper Finalist Awards, and two INFORMS Long Term Impact Finalist Awards, among others.David holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business and an M.S. in Statistics, from Stanford University, as well as an M.Com. (1st Class Honors) and B.Com. from the University of Auckland. He is a US Permanent Resident and New Zealand Citizen and resides in New York City.