David Best was a partner in the Deloitte and Touche Consulting Group from 1989 to 1998, when he retired from the Firm at the end of May 1998. He now pursues a freelance career as a writer, academic and consultant to the Boards of a number of large national and multi national companies in several sectors.

He has held the title of Visiting Professor in the Department of Information Science in the University of Strathclyde since 1994, is a Member of the Advisory Board of the City University School of Informatics, the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Information Management, and the magazine Information Age.

Prior to Joining Deloittes he was a Senior Research Manager with ECOTEC Research and Consulting where he was responsible for evaluation of Public policy initiatives for the DTI and the Department of the Environment as well as for counselling and development of private businesses. During this period his clients included, besides a number of Central Government Departments, Barclays Bank Local Head Office in Birmingham, the European Commission, DGs VIII and XIII, UNESCO and the Hungarian Ministry of Culture.

From 1980 to 1984 he was employed by Tecquipment Group in Nottingham initially as P.A. to the Chairman and then as Commercial Marketing Director, Head of Commercial Systems and latterly as Board Secretary and Head of Consulting Services. He completed his PhD between 1978 and 1980 and his M.Sc. between 1976 and 1977.

He has a number of papers, articles and a book in publication. The most recent of these is The Fourth Resource: Information and its Management published by ASLIB/Gower in 1997. A list of other publications, which span Geology (published by HMSO), General Systems Theory, Risk Management and IT, is available on request.