David Reece
Verified Expert in Support and Operations
Support & Operations Expert
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Toptal member since March 26, 2026
David is a health, wellness, clean beauty, and personal care executive with 25 years of experience building success, scaling, and repositioning consumer brands. He is trusted to lead high-stakes operational and strategic goals and excel at closing the gap between strategy and execution. David has deep expertise across DTC, retail, and Amazon, EBITDA expansion, M&A diligence, supply chain transformation, and the AI-driven systems that allow lean organizations to operate at scale.
Expertise
- Brand Building
- Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
- Excel Modeling
- Leadership
- Operational Leadership
- Operations
- Strategy
- Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Work Experience
Strategic Advisor
Uihlein Carpenter
- Rebuilt a legacy luxury nail brand for a new consumer, overhauling positioning, channel architecture, and digital infrastructure. Delivered a 3-year growth roadmap adopted by new ownership.
- Unlocked the brand's fastest-growing market by activating underutilized China factory capacity and layering in AI-powered S&OP and Stage Gate processes.
- Achieved a 15% improvement in on-time delivery, enhancing the supply infrastructure to scale sustainably.
- Led company from compliance gaps to successful exit, closing FDA/MDSAP gaps, modernizing ERP, unlocking the EU and Asian regulatory approvals, and demonstrating buyer-ready scalability during peak COVID-19 disruption.
- Defined core demographic, built investor narrative, and executed full omnichannel launch across DTC, Amazon, and retail, driving ROI-positive growth through a female-athlete affiliate model that replaced costly traditional campaigns.
- Built brand identity, a marketing strategy, and a Zara-inspired product model by designing for basket size, subscription, and repeat engagement on a digitally-native DTC roadmap, with AI-powered content and planning tools for a lean team.
Chief Operating Officer
Stila Cosmetics
- Led the operational and financial turnaround of an iconic color cosmetics brand, restoring margins, eliminating operational inefficiencies, and building a diligence-ready business to support a future transaction.
- Eliminated $5+ million in E&O inventory with days-on-hand reduced from 450+ to under 250, and cut freight spend by 30% with airfreight reliance down by 70%, directly improving working capital and EBITDA trajectory.
- Shifted Amazon from Vendor Central to Seller Central, improving net product margins by 7% in the brand’s fastest-growing channel.
- Implemented eQMS, S&OP with improved forecast accuracy of 10%, and Stage Gate NPD, establishing the documented process infrastructure buyers expect to see in diligence.
- Exceeded UFR targets (98.2% vs. 97% goal) while navigating viral TikTok demand spikes. Redesigned the NPD launch strategy to absorb viral opportunities.
Chief Operating Officer
Natals (Ritual)
- Brought in as key operating partner to build the people, process, and systems infrastructure needed to scale and support a future exit, driving the business from negative EBITDA to positive during tenure.
- Architected NetSuite ERP and AI-driven planning stack, including SourceDay and NetStock, reducing inventory carry cost by $7.2 million and building a scalable, diligence-ready operational backbone.
- Drove 24% COGS reduction through manufacturing contract renegotiation, directly expanding unit economics and EBITDA margin.
- Drove 15% YOY topline growth by designing infrastructure to support the desired channel mix and shifting the marketing strategy to expand the addressable market.
- Consolidated PMO into a unified center of excellence, increasing project commercialization by 15%.
Vice President, Global Supply Chain
Beautycounter
- Built the global 3PL logistics platform that supported the brand's DTC and retail scale-up to $440 million revenue, driving $2.1 million in parcel spend savings and same-day SLA fulfillment.
- Established clean ingredient and packaging standards that codified the brand's core differentiator, creating defensible, documented product compliance that held up through diligence.
- Led SAP/Fiori ERP implementation, streamlining procurement and operations, and building the systems infrastructure.
- Aligned product development and marketing into a unified commercialization process, building the execution capability that scaled with the business through its $1 billion transaction.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Finance and Operations
Georgetown University - Washington, DC, USA
Bachelor's Degree in History
Hamilton College - Clinton, NY, USA
Skills
Communication
Writing
Operations
Vendor Sourcing
Productivity Suites
Microsoft Excel
Skill Ladders
Sourcing
Administrative Operations
Quality Assurance (QA)
Commerce Platforms
Shopify
Other
Demand Forecasting, Operations, Operational Risk, Entrepreneurship, Supply Chain Optimization, Negotiation, Operational Leadership, Supply Chain, Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP), 3PL Management, ERP Systems, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Distribution, Strategic Sourcing, Leadership, Strategy, Brand Strategy, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Process Design, Excel Modeling, Contract Negotiation, Vendor Negotiation, Vendor Management, PMO, NPD Stage Gate, Scalability, Process Optimization, Workflow Optimization, Finance, Corporate Finance, Financial Forecasting, Economics, Brand Building, Amazon RDS, TikTok Shop, Sales & Marketing, Regulatory Compliance
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