Practice · Digital & Strategy
Digital transformation, commerce and technology strategy, advised by someone who carried the growth number as a Chief Digital Officer and ran a strategy practice before that.
Why This One Is Different
Digital transformation goes wrong when it is run as a technology program with a technology scorecard. The platform ships, the integrations work, and nobody can say what it did to revenue. The organizations that get a return treat it as a growth program with a number attached — and staff it accordingly.
David LaRue has held that number. As Chief Digital Officer at KEH he was a key contributor to 30%+ annual sales growth sustained for three and a half years, with consecutive yearly EBITDA gains — delivered through headless commerce, a PIM and customer data platform, new marketplace channels and measurable gains in ROAS, conversion and customer lifetime value. At Adtalem he led a digital organization of 40 direct and several hundred indirect staff.
The strategy half is not borrowed either: before rejoining IQ4hire he was a Partner at Bridge Strategy Group, a firm founded by former McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, Mercer and Renaissance partners, where he carried the P&L for the interactive-digital and branding practice.
Engagements
| Organization | Category | Scope | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| KEH CameraCTO → CDO → CIO · 2020–24 | Digital · Commerce · Growth | Owned technology and digital across web, retail and marketplaces for the world's largest circular-economy camera business, and ran it as a growth program rather than an IT project. Opened Walmart, eBay and Target channels, and drove gains in ROAS, conversion, customer lifetime value, SEO and organic sessions. | 30%+ Growth3½ years running |
| Adtalem / DeVryDirector, Global Head — Digital, Shared Services · 2008–12 | Digital Org · MarTech | Reported to the global CIO at a $2.4B S&P 500 education group, leading 40 direct and several hundred indirect staff across digital strategy, marketing technology, interactive design, portals, identity and access management, and integration and middleware. | 40 Direct Reports |
| True Value CompanyDirector, Head of Enterprise Architecture · 2013–18 | Architecture · Commerce | Chief architect over a multi-vendor program across Teradata, Adobe Commerce and Experience Cloud, loyalty and GEP procurement, managing 20 direct and 100+ indirect staff for a wholesaler with 4,400+ stores and $10B in member-retail sales. | $10B Retail NetworkCut IT expense $8M/yr |
| Bridge Strategy GroupPartner · 1999–2000 | Strategy Consulting | Full P&L responsibility for the interactive-digital and branding practice at a Chicago strategy firm founded by former partners of McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, Mercer and Renaissance. IQ4hire was a client before he joined the firm. | Practice P&L |
| Wynwyn.comCIO / VP Information Technology · 2000–01 | Startup · Local Commerce | Built and led the technology organization for a venture-backed local-commerce platform delivering business content and applications across web and mobile. | Venture-Backed |
What We Evaluate
Conversion, average order value, lifetime value, cost to serve — named before selection, with a baseline. A digital program without an agreed metric cannot be judged, and will be judged anyway.
Custom work is justified only where it is the thing customers choose you for. Everywhere else it is cost you will maintain forever. Most roadmaps have this backwards.
Platforms are chosen for launch and lived with for years. We score the operating model — the staffing, the agency dependency, the skills you will have to hire — alongside the technology.
Commerce fails on product data, inventory accuracy and order orchestration far more often than on the front end. PIM, MDM and integration get scored as first-class decisions, not afterthoughts.
Evaluating a commerce platform specifically? The offering, including build-versus-buy and partner selection, is set out on the Digital Commerce page. This page is the operating history behind it.