David R. Brousell is the Founder, Vice President and Executive Director of the Manufacturing Leadership Council, the digital manufacturing arm of the National Association of Manufacturing, the largest association of manufacturers in the United States. 

The Manufacturing Leadership Community’s mission is to enable its members to realize a better future by focusing on the intersection of advanced technologies and fundamental business change to create competitive advantage. Brousell leads a team of experienced technology and manufacturing professionals that provides thought-leadership content on a member-defined set of “Critical Issues” facing manufacturing, virtual meetings and discussions on those issues, and lives conferences and plant tours. The “Critical Issues” are part of the Council’s focus on Manufacturing 4.0, the next wave of industrial progress based on the Internet.

In his nearly five-decade career, Brousell has served in numerous leadership positions in companies large and small. In the early 1990s, he served as Editor-in-Chief of Reed Publishing’s Datamation Magazine, which was the standard of excellence in the IT magazine field for many years. In the mid to late 1990s, he served as Vice President and Editorial Director at Sentry Publishing Co., in charge of that firm’s Software Magazine, Client-Server Computer Magazine and Sentry Market Research publications. In 1997, he became Vice President of Strategy at Softbank Comdex, the organizer of the huge Comdex technology trade show and conference.

In 1998, Brousell was named Editor-in-Chief of Managing Automation Magazine, part of Thomas Publishing Co. of New York. He later became Vice President & Editorial Director of Managing Automation Media, where he founded the Manufacturing Leadership Council.