David Cancel

David Cancel is best known for creating hypergrowth products and product teams at companies such as Drift, HubSpot, Performable, Ghostery, and Complete. From 2015 to 2022, Cancel served as the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Drift, the world's leading conversational marketing and sales platform that helps businesses connect with customers. In 2022, he transitioned to executive chairman, and he stayed until 2024.

Before founding Drift, Cancel was the chief product officer at HubSpot, which acquired Performable, a next-generation marketing automation software platform that Cancel founded and served as CEO. Prior to Performable, David was the co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Lookery, the founder and CTO of Compete, which was acquired by WPP(LON:WPP), and the CTO of BuyerZone, which was acquired by Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK). In the late 90s, Cancel was part of the founding team of Bolt.com and part of Lycos. He sits on several boards and is an active angel investor. He is a part-time board member for Olo, an open SaaS platform for restaurants that enables hospitality at every touchpoint, and a part-time board member for the Whitney Museum of American Art.

He has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, and Fast Company and has guest lectured on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and other universities.