David Golden

Vice-Chairman

CEO – East Tennessee State University Research Corporation; Allen and Ruth Harris Chair of Excellence – East Tennessee State University College of Business and Technology

David A. Golden is the CEO of the East Tennessee State University Research Corporation and is the Allen and Ruth Harris Chair of Excellence in the East Tennessee State University College of Business and Technology.  David’s areas of interests include strategy, global business, economic development, STEM education, ESG, synthetic biology and complexity science. In 2019 David retired as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal & Sustainability Officer, and Corporate Secretary of Eastman Chemical Company–a multinational, materials innovation company headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee and ranked among the Fortune 500.  While at Eastman, Golden had overall responsibility for Eastman’s Legal, Corporate HSES, Product Safety & Regulatory Affairs, Sustainability, Government Relations, Communication, Community Affairs, Public Policy, Privacy, Global Business Conduct, and International Trade Compliance functions, with personnel in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Prior to joining Eastman in 1995, David was with the international law firm of Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) in their Atlanta office.

David holds a B.S. (Accounting) and a Juris Doctorate from Brigham Young University, graduating Magna Cum Laude and Order of the Coif and served on the management committee of the BYU Law Review. He is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School having completed Harvard’s Advanced Management Program in 2012.

Golden previously served on the Board of Trustees of East Tennessee State University (Vice-chair) as well as the Board of Directors of Ballad Health. He currently serves on the boards of the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), the Niswonger Foundation, the BioBuilder Educational Foundation, Leadership Tennessee, and the Marine Technology Society. His other public service includes work as a member of the advisory board of Western Governor’s University-TN and the University of Tennessee’s Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy.