David Bradford Thornburgh (born October 6, 1958) is president and CEO of th
Committee of Seventy
an influential independent government reform group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Seventy in December 2014, he served as

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Fels Institute of Government The Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania is a graduate school of public policy and public management. Founded in 1937 by Samuel Simeon Fels of the Fels Naptha Soap Company, the Fel Institute prepares its students for pub ...

. He is a frequent commentator on regional development, public policy and civic affairs. He has been recognized by Leadership Philadelphia as one of the most trusted and respected civic "connectors" in the Philadelphia area.
University of Pennsylvania, Aug 05, 2008 He is the son of former Pennsylvania governor and U.S. Attorney General

Dick Thornburgh Richard Lewis Thornburgh (July 16, 1932 – December 31, 2020) was an American lawyer, author, and Republican politician who served as the 41st governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the United States attorney general fro ...

. Thornburgh graduated from

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

with a B.A. in political science. He later attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

, where he received a Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree. Thornburgh went on to become the director of civic affairs at the CIGNA Corporation in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. In 1988 Thornburgh was appointed as director of the Wharton Small Business Development Center, the consulting and training arm of the Wharton School's top-ranked Entrepreneurial Center, where he helped 20,000 entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, raise $40 million in additional capital, and in the process create 4,000 new jobs in the region. In 1994, he left the SBDC to become the executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, one of the nation's oldest and most respected private sector-led regional "think and do" tanks.
, Purdue Conference, Jan 22, 2006 While at the Economy League, he led efforts to reduce and restructure local taxes, improve the quality of the regional workforce, invest in arts and culture, and position the Philadelphia as an entrepreneurial, knowledge-based economy. Following his time at the Economy League, in 2006, Thornburgh was named president and CEO of the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, a best-practice network of regional leaders in communities across the United States.
, Alliance for Regional Stewardship, Jan 22,2008 Thornburgh has received numerous awards, including an

Eisenhower Fellowship Eisenhower Fellowships is a private, non-profit organization created in 1953 by a group of prominent American citizens to honor President Dwight D. Eisenhower for his contribution to humanity as a soldier, statesman, and world leader. The organiza ...

in 2000 and was a finalist for the

White House Fellowship The White House Fellows program is a federal fellowship program established via Executive Order by President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1964, based upon a suggestion from John W. Gardner, then the president of Carnegie Cor ...

in 1992. In 1991 he was chosen by the "

Philadelphia Business Journal American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News ...

" as one of '40 Business Leaders Under 40'. He and his wife Rebecca McKillip Thornburgh, a Wharton-MBA turned children's book author/illustrator, have lived in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia since 1996. Their two daughters, Blair and Alice, now in their twenties, were born and raised there and attended and graduated from Germantown Friends School. Lifelong musicians, Rebecca and David performed for nearly 20 years in an alt-country band called Reckless Amateurs, and David also played pedal steel guitar with The Miners, an original alt-country band. He is a lifelong scuba diver.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornburgh, David 1958 births University of Pennsylvania faculty Haverford College alumni Harvard Kennedy School alumni Fels Institute of Government Living people American chief executives