Daniel Davis
Mr. Davis has 25 years of global operations, strategy, finance, regulatory and legal leadership experience in telecom infrastructure, data center, cloud, medical device and biotechnology companies. Prior to founding Arcadian, Mr. Davis provided corporate strategy, finance and operations advisory services to data center and network service provider companies as well as private equity, hedge fund and family office investors in the infrastructure space.
Mr. Davis retired in April 2017 from CenturyLink after a 20-year executive career, where he last served as Vice President in its Corporate Strategy group. He had responsibility for the worldwide corporate business development efforts of CenturyLink and was the executive sponsor for relationships with global technology leaders such as Microsoft and Facebook. Mr. Davis led a cross-functional team of business professionals and attorneys that developed, structured, negotiated and implemented global partnerships, alliances and minority equity investments. While at CenturyLink he was also a core member of the M&A teams that acquired $30B of network, data center and software companies.
Before his time in the CenturyLink Corporate Strategy group Mr. Davis served as its Deputy General Counsel. In that role he grew the law department from seven lawyers to more than 220 legal professionals. He led legal teams supporting CenturyLink’s network operations team, global wholesale business unit, Office of Chief Technology Officer, as well as supply chain, real estate and carrier relations functions. Mr. Davis joined CenturyLink in 2003 after CenturyLink’s acquisition of LightCore, where he had served as its General Counsel and Secretary, head of Network Development and several other operating unit leadership roles. Mr. Davis began his career in private legal practice in St. Louis, Missouri, with the international law firm of Bryan Cave in its corporate transactions and corporate finance groups.
Outside of work, Mr. Davis is active in the St. Louis start-up company ecosystem acting as lead mentor to early-stage stage companies in a local accelerator as well as providing one-on-one coaching to early-stage CEOs. He periodically teaches select courses within the Executive MBA program at Washington University in St. Louis.
