David Brauer
David Brauer

David Beecher Brauer, D.B.A.Marketing scholarSales program builderFounder, Priority Bridge

How people decide what matters most.

I study priorities: how students choose a business school, how guests choose a hotel, how a salesperson fits a culture. Then I build the sales programs and the culture software that put those priorities to work.

David Brauer
104 → 601students taking sales classes each year at West Virginia University, 2020 to 2025Scaled
$3M+raised in corporate partnerships to build the WVU Sales Institute** Cash and in kind donationsRaised
#8built a nationally ranked collegiate sales team from the ground upGrew
$133,000raised by my students in one school year to send disadvantaged or disabled Scouts to campService

2 / Bio

One question, asked in the classroom and in the market.

Every person, team and company ranks what it values, whether it says so or not. My work measures that ranking and then uses it, in research, in sales education and in a culture intelligence company.

AAcademic trajectory

My research sits where marketing meets decision science. My doctorate at Durham University Business School used the Analytic Hierarchy Process to measure what graduate business students prioritize, with Thomas L. Saaty, the method's creator, on my supervisory team. The same question has since carried into hotel choice, sustainability, salesperson well being and cultural fit, with work in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management and the European Journal of Marketing.

I also build sales programs. At West Virginia University I directed the Professional Sales Institute and founded a competitive team that climbed into the national top ten. At Slippery Rock University I direct the ROCK MBA and the Community Innovation Studio, and I coach the university's first competitive sales team.

  • 2026 to nowSlippery Rock UniversityROCK MBA Director; Faculty Director, Community Innovation Studio; Founder and Coach, FASTENAL Slippery Rock University AMA Sales Team
  • 2026 to nowVirginia Commonwealth UniversityAdjunct Faculty, Marketing
  • 2020 to 2026West Virginia UniversityDirector, Professional Sales Institute; Teaching Assistant Professor of Marketing
  • 2019 to 2020Carthage CollegeAssistant Professor of Marketing, tenure track
  • 2016Durham University Business School (Durham, England)Doctor of Business Administration

BProfessional practice

I have sold for a living since the mid 1990s, starting as an account executive with a Fortune 500 company. Today I lead Priority Bridge Insights, a culture intelligence company that measures how an organization's people prioritize nine cultural dimensions and shows where each candidate fits best. Priority Bridge is a portfolio company of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.

Our framework, the Universal Nine, builds on the Culture 500 research published in MIT Sloan Management Review. The MyCulture Profile is free for individuals, and companies use the Culture Benchmark and Culture Fit to connect culture with who stays and who sells. The sales programs I build run on partnerships with companies such as Fastenal and ZoomInfo and with Scouting America.

  • 2022 to presentPriority Bridge InsightsFounder and CEO
  • 2024 to 2026University Sales Center AllianceBoard Member; MARCOM Chair
  • 2021Evoqua Water TechnologiesProfessor in Residence with the CMO and National Sales Director
  • 2021Kendall HuntCoauthor, The Sales Expedition, with David F. Brauer
  • 2015 to nowHaiti FriendsVice President, Board of Directors

3 / Library

The publication library.

Journal articles, frameworks and professional writing in one searchable list. Open any entry for key takeaways, follow it to the journal, or copy a citation in APA or BibTeX.

    4 / The Lab

    Ideas in progress, rabbit holes and talks.

    The less formal side of the work: hypotheses I am still testing, things I keep coming back to, and where I have been speaking. Start with the method behind most of it.

    FREEMYCULTURE PROFILE

    Know what you put first. Then find the place that puts it first too.

    The MyCulture Profile is a ten minute set of comparisons across the Universal Nine cultural dimensions. Instead of rating each value, you choose between them two at a time, and the trade offs you make add up to a profile that sums to 100 percent: your top five priorities, in order, with the distance between them. It is the same profile Priority Bridge uses to benchmark whole organizations, which is what makes yours comparable with theirs.

    1. 1See your own priorities clearly. Most people have never had to choose between integrity and performance, or service and innovation. Ten minutes of choosing shows you what you would protect first.
    2. 2Ask better questions in interviews. Set your profile beside a team's and the gaps become the questions worth asking before you say yes.
    3. 3Find where you fit best. Where an employer has a Culture Benchmark, your profile shows which team or location shares the most of your priorities, reported as shared priorities, never as a score.
    4. 4Carry it with you. A verified profile you own, an import code an employer can use, a LinkedIn banner, and ready to paste copy for your resume and bio.
    5. 5It is a conversation, not a test. The profile never disqualifies anyone. It gives you and a hiring manager something true to talk about.

    WORKING HYPOTHESIS1

    Fit to the company predicts who stays. Fit to the team predicts who sells.

    The thread running through my culture fit research, and the frame for a practitioner article now in revision.

    WORKING HYPOTHESIS2

    One owner can run two cultures.

    Two stores under the same owner can have sales floors whose priorities barely resemble each other. Culture lives in the unit, so measure it there.

    WORKING HYPOTHESIS3

    Culture findings do not travel. The method does.

    What predicts success in one company rarely predicts it in the next. Hold the definition and the dimensions constant, and profiles finally become comparable.

    WORKING HYPOTHESIS4

    Customer orientation is a share, never a score.

    Every sales unit says the customer comes first. The useful question is how much weight the customer gets relative to everything else, which is the theory I am building for AMS Review.

    RABBIT HOLEDISSERTATION AND AFTER

    The Analytic Hierarchy Process

    Thomas L. Saaty's method turns pairwise judgments into ratio scale weights and checks itself with a consistency ratio. I learned it from Saaty while writing my dissertation, chaired AHP sessions in Washington and Pittsburgh, and helped organize the 2016 international symposium in London.

    TALKS AND MEDIASELECTED

    Talks and media

    • NOV 2026Society for Marketing Advances, OrlandoSession chair, Green Is the New Black: Sustainable Consumption
    • NOV 2026Global Collegiate Sales Competition, Las VegasCoach, FASTENAL Slippery Rock University AMA Sales Team
    • SEP 2026Association for Consumer Research, ChicagoHow recipients misjudge givers' views of gift registries
    • JUN 2024Global Sales Science Institute, MontpellierFitting In to Win: individual cultural fit and salesperson performance
    • 2019Nottingham University Business SchoolInvited guest participant, Sociocracy at Work

    CURIOSITIESOFF THE CV, MOSTLY

    Curiosities

    • 1989Eagle ScoutScouting stayed with me. My sales students now call the person who holds their dream job, earn a career conversation, then share the story of sending Scouts to camp.
    • STORYNarrative sellingWritten with my father, a self described insurance and sales geek: why authenticity decides whether anyone believes your story.

    5 / Decision Making and Consensus

    How people decide, and how groups come to agree.

    One method sits underneath almost everything I do. My doctoral work at Durham University Business School (Durham, England) was supervised with Thomas L. Saaty, who created the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and I have used his pairwise comparison ever since: not to ask people how much they like each option, which flattens every answer into a four or a five, but to make them choose between two at a time and say by how much. The trade offs add up to a profile that sums to 100 percent, so you see the order of a person's priorities and the distance between them. Put many of those profiles together and you can see where a group lines up, where it splits, and how far any one person sits from the center.

    ADeciding

    The consumer studies in the Library ask one question in different settings: when people weigh competing options, what is the order and how far apart are the choices? Hotel guests choosing where to stay, prospective MBA students choosing a school, gift givers choosing off a registry. In each case a rating scale hides the answer and a forced choice reveals it.

    The same arithmetic runs through Priority Bridge, where every employee's priorities across nine cultural dimensions are combined into a Culture Benchmark and every candidate's are read against it as shared priorities, a conversation rather than a score. The two white papers in the Library set out that method for practitioners.

    BAgreeing

    Most groups settle questions the wrong way: whoever argues longest, or loudest, or last, wins. Pairwise comparison offers a quieter route. Put the question and the options on the screen, let every concerned person compare the options two at a time in private, and combine the judgments. The result is the group's real order of preference, with no one person's weight on the scale. The issue is settled and closed, and the meeting moves on.

    I built a free tool for exactly that. It runs on Saaty's one to nine scale, one comparison per screen, and works two ways: everyone on their own phone, or one device passed around the table. Open it, or point a phone at the code.

    GROUP CONSENSUS · FREE TO USE

    Open the Group Consensus tool

    Scan to open on a phone and vote from your seat.

    CDecision science in the Library

      6 / Community

      Students who dared to call, and a hospital in the Artibonite Valley.

      Two commitments outside the classroom. One grew straight out of it: a sales course in which students chase their own dream jobs and, along the way, raise the money that sends Scouts with disabilities to camp. The other is a board seat I have held since 2011 with Haiti Friends, the Pittsburgh nonprofit that works alongside Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in rural Haiti.

      AGreat Connections: the Scout Project

      Every student in the course names a dream job, finds a person who holds it, and asks for one conversation about how they got from college to where they are today. In that conversation the student also tells a second story: the Laurel Highlands Council's Special Needs and Abilities Scouting program, which sends Scouts with disabilities to summer camp and the National Jamboree. About $2,500 sends one Scout to camp. In the 2025 to 2026 school year my students at West Virginia University raised $133,000, and the model was picked up by two more universities.

      The primary purpose is the career: a mentor earned by daring to call. The secondary purpose is the Scouts. Students learn that the two go together, because the person who took the call is the same person who gives.

      I am turning the project into a complete course any school can adopt, titled Great Connections: The Student Who Dared to Call and the Scouts Who Went to Camp. It comes in eight week and fifteen week versions, in person or online, mapped to AACSB standards, with The Sales Expedition provided free to every student, Replay for CRM, role play and cold call practice, and a donation and tracking link from the Council for each participating school. Outreach begins no later than week seven, and every student carries a goal of $500 for the Scouts alongside a quota of career conversations.

      • 2025 to 2026Scouting America Sales Project at West Virginia University: $133,000 raised to send Scouts with disabilities to camp
      • 2026Curriculum built for national use; Scouting America pledged $10,000 to the Slippery Rock University sales program
      • Spring 2027Runs at Slippery Rock University in the sales classes and as the Sales Team's community project, with Old Dominion University and Virginia Commonwealth University also participating
      • 2027Teaching Innovations abstract in preparation for the National Conference in Sales Management; pitching the project to University Sales Center Alliance schools for Fall 2027

      Impact report from Laurel Highlands Council (PDF)

      BHaiti Friends

      Haiti Friends, formerly Friends of Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, is a Pittsburgh nonprofit that has worked alongside Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti since 1985. The hospital, founded in 1956 by Larimer and Gwen Mellon, serves the people of the Artibonite Valley; the Friends design and fund the projects around it, from reforestation and sustainable farming to training for rehabilitation technicians, and keep a gallery of Haitian art in Pittsburgh whose sales help sustain the work. I have served on the board as Vice President since 2011, first under the old name and since 2015 as Haiti Friends.

      It is the same work I teach: find the people who care, tell the story plainly, and make the ask easy to say yes to. A small group in Pittsburgh has kept a hospital in rural Haiti supplied with projects for four decades by doing exactly that.

      • 2015 to presentBoard of Directors, Vice President, Haiti Friends, Pittsburgh
      • 2011 to 2015Board of Directors, Vice President, Friends of Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti

      Haiti Friends

      7 / Timeline

      Two tracks, running side by side.

      Academic milestones on the left, professional practice on the right. Years ringed in blue are the ones where both tracks moved at once.

      8 / Contact

      Let's build something together.

      Research collaborations, speaking, program partnerships and culture benchmarking: I would love to hear what you are working on.

      WRITE TO ME

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      COLOPHON

      Designed as an editorial research lab: a paper colored grid, hairline rules and one Oxford blue accent. Headlines are set in Newsreader, reading text in Plus Jakarta Sans, and every date, DOI and tag in JetBrains Mono. One page, no trackers, no stock photography. Last updated November 2026.

      CURRICULUM VITAE · NOVEMBER 2026

      David Beecher Brauer, D.B.A.

      linkedin.com/in/davidbeecherbrauer · Google Scholar

      Education

      • D.B.A., Doctor of Business Administration, Durham University Business School (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS accredited), Durham, England, 2016. Dissertation: How and Why Can a Strategy of Sustainability be Used by Graduate Business Schools in the United States to Gain a Competitive Advantage? Supervisors: Professor László Pólos, Dr. Geoff Moore, and Distinguished Professor Thomas L. Saaty (University of Pittsburgh).
      • M.S., Human Resource Management, School of Business, Robert Morris University, 2009
      • B.A., Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 1996

      Appointments

      • Slippery Rock University, Haverlack College of Business. Director of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Sales, and MBA: ROCK MBA Director; Faculty Director, Community Innovation Studio; Founder and Coach, FASTENAL Slippery Rock University AMA Sales Team. 2026 to present
      • Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Business. Adjunct Faculty, Marketing. 2026 to present
      • West Virginia University, John Chambers College of Business and Economics. Director of the Professional Sales Institute and Teaching Assistant Professor of Marketing (Scholarly Academic). 2020 to 2026
      • Carthage College. Assistant Professor of Marketing, tenure track. 2019 to 2020
      • Duquesne University, Palumbo Donahue School of Business. Adjunct Professor of Management. 2017 to 2020
      • Point Park University, Rowland School of Business. Adjunct Professor of Marketing. 2019 to 2020
      • Durham University Business School (Durham, England). Online Tutor, Managing People and Strategic Management. 2011 to 2019
      • Robert Morris University, School of Business. Lecturer in Management. 2015 to 2017
      • University of Pittsburgh, Katz School of Business. Visiting Scholar. 2015

      Industry

      • Priority Bridge Insights LLC. Founder and CEO. Culture intelligence platform; portfolio company of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Carnegie Mellon University. 2022 to present
      • Evoqua Water Technologies. Professor in Residence, working with the CMO and the National Sales Director. Summer and Fall 2021

      Publications

      Grants and awards

      • Secured Fastenal as named sponsor of the FASTENAL Slippery Rock University AMA Sales Team, $15,000 for 2026 to 2027, within the first month at Slippery Rock University 2026
      • Secured an in kind gift of 110 ZoomInfo SalesOS seat licenses for 14 months, valued at $700,000, for Slippery Rock University sales students 2026
      • Secured a $10,000 pledge from Scouting America for the Slippery Rock University sales program 2026
      • Slippery Rock University Work Based Learning Micro Grant ($1,725) for Sales Team training and travel to the Global Collegiate Sales Competition 2026
      • $500,000 software usage grant from ZoomInfo 2024, 2025, 2026
      • $138,000 software usage grant from Awario 2019, 2020
      • $115,000 software usage grant from Priority Bridge LLC 2019, 2020
      • Merit of Teaching, West Virginia University 2022, 2023, 2025
      • Merit for Service, West Virginia University 2022, 2023, 2024
      • Merit for Teaching, Service and Scholarship, Robert Morris University 2015 to 2016
      • Durham University Student Scholarship Award, £1,000 2014

      Sales program results

      • Grew West Virginia University sales enrollment from 104 students in 2020 to more than 601 in 2024 to 2025.
      • Raised more than $3,000,000 in corporate partnerships for the WVU Sales Institute, its courses, USCA initiatives and the FASTENAL / WVU Sales Team; grew annual sponsorships from $38,000 to more than $300,000.
      • Founded the FASTENAL / WVU Sales Team (97 tryouts, 18 members); first national role play invitations in year one; national ranking from #56 to #24 to #8.
      • 2nd place team, MTSU Oracle Tech Sales Competition (Spring 2025); ICSC 8th place overall (Fall 2025); ICSC 4th place sales role play and 15th overall, up from 51st (Fall 2024).
      • With Fastenal, created the largest live sales role play competition in the world: 574 role players from 36 schools in 2024, more than 900 from 68 schools in 2025.
      • Scouting America sales project: students raised more than $133,000 in the 2025 to 2026 school year to send disabled Scouts to summer camp.
      • Founded the first competitive sales team in Slippery Rock University history (August 2026), competing at GCSC in November 2026 and at Selling with the Bulls (University of South Florida) in February 2027.

      Teaching

      Slippery Rock University

      Strategic Marketing Management (MBA); Principles of Marketing; Advanced Selling (Spring 2027)

      Virginia Commonwealth University

      Selling 1: The Art of Persuasion (online)

      West Virginia University

      AI in Sales (MBA); Personal Selling 1; Professional Selling 2; Sales Management; Selling with Social Media; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy (MBA); Marketing Research (MBA)

      Carthage College

      Marketing Principles; Marketing Research (capstone); Social Media Marketing

      Duquesne University

      Entrepreneurship (MBA); International Business (MBA); Ethical Decision Making (MBA); Sales Fundamentals

      Point Park University

      Principles of Marketing; Professional Sales

      Durham University Business School (Durham, England)

      Managing People and Strategy, Global MBA (online)

      Robert Morris University

      Strategic Management (undergraduate and MBA); Management Theory and Practice; International Business; Organizational Behavior (graduate); Training and Development Through Performance Management

      Teaching areas

      Culture; Decision making; Distribution channels; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; International business; Marketing; Marketing research; Marketing strategy; Sales; Sales and AI; Sales management; Social media marketing; Strategy

      Service

      To the profession

      • Journal reviewer: Journal of Consumer Behaviour (2025); Journal of Business Research (2016, 2017); International Journal of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (2014 to 2016); Journal of Sustainability (2015); Journal of Social Sciences (2017)
      • Conference reviewer: Academy of Management (Critical Management Studies, Entrepreneurship, Learning and Education, Organization and Management Theory, Business Policy and Strategy), 2016 to 2020; Midwest Academy of Management, 2016, 2017
      • Session Chair, Green Is the New Black: Sustainable Consumption, Society for Marketing Advances, Orlando 2026
      • Session Chair, Business Applications, International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Pittsburgh 2022
      • Organizing Committee, International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, London 2016
      • Accepted Participant, Junior Faculty Consortium, Academy of Management, Anaheim 2016
      • Session Chair, Strategic Applications Study, International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Washington, D.C. 2014
      • University Sales Center Alliance: Board Member (2024 to 2026); MARCOM Committee (2021 to present); MARCOM Chair (2025)

      To the university

      • Slippery Rock University: ROCK MBA Director; Faculty Director, Community Innovation Studio; Faculty Advisor, AMA Chapter; developing a Safety Sales Certificate and Safety Sales Program with the Safety program and Fastenal
      • West Virginia University: Curriculum Committee (2020 to 2026); DICE Committee (2020 to 2026); Chambers Innovation Team (2020 to 2022); Hiring Committee (2022 to 2023); developed the International Sales Accelerator
      • Carthage College, Duquesne University, Point Park University, Durham University and Robert Morris University: curriculum development, sales role play coaching, hiring committees, internship placements and alumni events

      To the community

      • Scouting America Sales Project: students raised $133,000 to send Scouts with disabilities to camp 2025 to 2026
      • Board of Directors, Vice President, Haiti Friends 2015 to present
      • Fundraising Committee, Three Rivers Rowing Association 2025
      • Board of Directors, Institute of Management and Financial Studies, Vietnam 2023 to 2025
      • Board of Directors, Vice President, Friends of Hôpital Albert Schweitzer 2011 to 2015
      • Board of Directors, Glade Run Lutheran Services 2005 to 2011

      Affiliations

      • Academy of Management, since 2013
      • American Marketing Association, since 2017; Pittsburgh Advisory Board, since 2020
      • Midwest Academy of Management, since 2016
      • Pittsburgh Human Resource Association, since 2017
      • Society for Human Resource Management, since 2009
      • University Sales Center Alliance, since 2021