About David Alsop
CHRO · Author · Executive Coach · Culture Catalyst
I have learned to see the potential that lives between the extremes.
Not the extreme that protects the business at the expense of people. Not the extreme that protects people at the expense of the business. The honest, uncomfortable, productive middle — where both are fully honored and something genuinely good gets built.
That capacity — seeing and growing potential — is what I bring to every CHRO role, every coaching conversation, every keynote room, and every DisruptHR stage. It is what Making HR Matter is built around. And it is what I believe HR, at its best, does for every organization it serves.
I am a CHRO, an author, and a community builder — but underneath all three, I am someone drawn to a specific kind of work: finding the potential in people and organizations that hasn't yet found its footing. Bridge to What's True is how I look for it. Grow The Potential is what I do with it. Everything else on this site is an expression of those two things.
Bridge to What's True. Grow The Potential.
I am the lucky husband to Heather and father of four boys — Luke, Caden, Porter, and Ryland. Utah is home. Its mountains and rivers are where I go to find what is true.
Full Bio
David Alsop's HR philosophy is simple: find the balance between the needs of your people and the needs of the business — and hold both with equal conviction.
David began his career in 2002 — not in HR, but in sales. That early experience gave him something rare: a visceral understanding of how a business actually runs, what line managers need, and how commercial pressure shapes culture. When he made the deliberate turn toward HR, he brought that business-first lens with him.
Over 20+ years, David built his craft at Kraft Foods, Nabisco, and Oscar Mayer before joining Ultradent Products, Inc., where as CHRO he has helped the company earn a spot on Fortune's list of the top five workplaces in large manufacturing and production. He is the co-author of Making HR Matter (Weaving Influence Press, 2026), a Wharton-certified CHRO, and a former Forbes Human Resources Council contributor.
He founded DisruptHR Salt Lake City in 2017 — creating a community where Utah's HR professionals, executives, founders, and team builders come together to challenge convention and inspire each other. He holds an MBA from the University of Arkansas and a BS from Brigham Young University.
Philosophy
What I Believe
"HR has more potential to shape organizational results than most companies ever let it. The work isn't choosing between what business demands and what people need. It's finding the truth that lives between them and building from there."
On Leadership
"The best leaders I've known ask better questions than they give answers. They gather the intelligence of every person in the room, hold it with patience, and know exactly when enough truth has surfaced to move forward with conviction."
On Finding Potential
"Reaching our highest potential in this world was never meant to be a solo act. It takes leaders wise enough to hire for what someone could become, not just what they already are, and mentors honest enough to name the distance between where we stand and where we could go."
On Bridging to Best Ideas
"Our brains don't reach their potential alone. They need honest voices willing to push back. When that connection happens with humility on both sides, ideas don't just improve. They become something the world has never seen before."
Media Kit Downloads