David Acheson

Dr. David Acheson is the Founder and CEO of The Acheson Group and brings more than 30 years of medical and food safety research and experience to the firm.

David graduated from the University of London Medical School and practiced internal medicine and infectious diseases in the United Kingdom until 1987 when he moved to the New England Medical Center and became an Associate Professor at Tufts University in Boston, studying the molecular pathogenesis of foodborne pathogens.

Prior to forming The Acheson Group, David served as the Chief Medical Officer at the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service and then in 2002 joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the Chief Medical Officer at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). After serving as the Director of CFSAN’s Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response, David was appointed as the Assistant and then Associate Commissioner for Foods which provided him an agency-wide leadership role for all food and feed issues and the responsibility for the development of the 2007 Food Protection Plan, which served as the basis for many of the authorities granted to FDA by the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Since founding the food safety practice within Leavitt Partners in July 2009, David has used his regulatory insight, food safety knowledge, and expertise in crisis response to advise food industry clients around the globe on how to best manage risk in a global supply chain and evolving regulatory landscape.

David has published extensively and is internationally recognized both for his public health expertise in food safety and his research in infectious diseases. He is a sought after speaker and regular guest on national news programs. He serves on a variety of boards and food safety advisory groups of several major food manufacturers.

Additionally, David is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians (London) and the Infectious Disease Society of America.