David S Turner

FTI Consulting

Washington, DC www.fticonsulting.com

david.turner@fticonsulting.com Tel: +1 202 728 8747; 312 399 1872

Biography

David Turner is a senior managing director at FTI Consulting and is based in Washington, D.C. where he leads the data and analytics group for the Americas. For more than 24 years, he has provided consulting services to Fortune 500 clients in the areas of data analytics, focusing on event-based transactions. His concentrations have included complex data acquisition and analysis, dispute resolution, investigation, regulatory and litigation response (including experience with OCC, FCPA and OFAC violations), information technology consulting and business performance improvement.

The views expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting, Inc, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates or its other professionals. FTI Consulting, Inc, including its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a consulting firm and is not a certified public accounting firm or a law firm.

What inspired you to pursue a consulting career?

Coming out of the University of Virginia, I wanted a career with a variety of challenges that also provided great flexibility and growth opportunity. My in-person interview with Arthur Andersen was with a partner – who is ironically now a colleague of mine at FTI Consulting – who said that consulting was a tremendous opportunity for someone who wasn’t sure which industry or vocation they wanted to pursue. It turned out that a vocation in consulting was exactly what I wanted, and it has been a lovely match for 24 years. I’ve worked with amazing people and clients, and I have never had the same day twice in all of those years.

What do clients look for in an effective data and technology expert?

Without a doubt, clients are looking for effective communication. Having the technical capabilities to develop and deploy cutting-edge solutions is of critical importance, but being able to explain and defend your analytical approach to attorneys, corporate clients, and regulators is paramount. An analytics solution is only as effective as the method in which the results are presented.

What data trends have been most prominent during the past year?

The volume and variety of new and emerging data that is relevant to a client’s problem is now incredibly massive and complex. That’s been a game-changer – the days of working with a simple transactional dataset are squarely in the rear-view mirror. Being able to explain the “when, where, how, and why” now involves communications, publicly available open source data, and sentiment data, just to scratch the surface. The tools that we need to deploy now must be robust and flexible to be able to tell the story in a multi-dimensional, multi-variable way. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by incredibly talented data analysts, data scientists, and other domain experts to be able to come to conclusions in an effective and efficient manner.

How have machine learning and artificial intelligence impacted how you approach data analytics and investigations?

AI/ML represent a seismic shift in how we approach problems. Looking at a problem through multi-dimensional datasets is now something we must consider in almost every new case. The convergence of unstructured and structured data has resulted in techniques such as natural language processing and continuous active learning to uncover answers. However, AI/ML are still best defined as one arrow in the quiver – those tools still require a human expert to produce logical and defendable conclusions. AI/ML and related techniques have allowed us to be smarter and more efficient in our analysis – but we have to be careful not to get caught up in the technology, doing analysis simply for its own sake.

What challenges has the shift to remote working presented from a digital forensic standpoint?

Did we face challenges when we shifted to remote work? Yes. However, we were able to quickly expand our methods of data aggregation and confirmation, since almost all forms of data can be collected and accepted securely through online channels. Through validation of the remote process (e.g., screen sharing during backend extractions and remote viewing into an SFTP upload) we have created acceptable custody processes and have substantially increased our efficiencies.

What challenges has the increased volume of data in modern cases posed? How have you ensured you are well equipped to handle them?

Fortunately, the increase in data size and complexity has been met by the innovation and improvement in our tools and capabilities. Distributed computing and other turbocharged analytics engines have made it possible to collect, index and analyse previously unmanageable volumes. Being able to quickly distil datasets into a manageable size is now something that can be done in a matter of days, allowing us to focus on identifying the problem and developing the sort of visualisations that allow for efficient discussions on case strategy and resolution.

What areas of data risk do you see emerging in the next few years?

Data privacy and cyber incidents are a top concern for me – we have put a tremendous amount of pressure on employees and IT departments to keep their data safe, secure and private. Hackers and scammers are increasingly agile and leveraging some really clever techniques to access entry points and to deploy malware or other intrusive material. It’s great that our team can have work-life balance and get their work done using the Wi-Fi at the local coffee shop, but those situations make me very anxious.

Looking back over your career, what is the most interesting case you have been a part of?

I’ve had the privilege of working on so many fascinating cases over my career, traveling the world, seeing all different companies and cultures, and helping them through business-critical cases. In 2011 I had the privilege of working with the Toyota Motor Corporation serving as an expert for their work regarding issues with sudden acceleration of their vehicles. Managing significant data analytics across a global firm like Toyota and helping them get to a proper resolution for a massively important company issue was truly career-defining for me and for many of the team at FTI Consulting.