David Ayres

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David Ayres is The Ashcroft Group’s CEO. He sets the firm’s business strategy and determines which companies and industries The Ashcroft Group is best suited to serve. Mr. Ayres sets the clear objectives that result in client goals being realized.

Mr. Ayres has recruited a highly motivated team with extraordinary experience producing results in high-pressure, high-stakes situations. With a well-earned reputation for integrity, vision and unparalleled strategic analysis, Mr. Ayres has led The Ashcroft Group quickly to become one of Washington’s most highly respected and growing business consulting firms with clients from all over the world. He brings over 20 years of expertise in strategic and crisis management to today’s challenges in the dynamic and complex terrain of global business.

Before co-founding The Ashcroft Group, Mr. Ayres was chief of staff at the Department of Justice, a $22 billion, 112,000 employee cabinet agency where he received the Department’s first annual ““Award for Strategic Leadership,”” which is now named for him. Mr. Ayres is recognized for his ability to synthesize massive amounts of data, quickly determine a results directed course of action, execute the strategy and deliver the expected results.

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Mr. Ayres managed the Department’s crisis operations and restructuring of the FBI to focus on preventing terrorist attacks. As the Attorney General’s principal counter-terrorism advisor, Mr. Ayres oversaw numerous counter-terrorism operations, program reorganizations and policy reforms to prevent additional terrorist attacks. Mr. Ayres also helped design and direct strategies that resulted in historically low violent crime and gun crime rates; the lowest teenage drug use rate in a decade; and a wave of prosecutions stemming from the corporate scandals that rocked the financial markets and the economy. In 2004, the Drug Enforcement Administration awarded Mr. Ayres its prestigious ““Administrator’s Award for Distinguished Service”” for his work reorganizing U.S. drug enforcement strategy.

Before joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Ayres held senior leadership positions for U.S. Senators John C. Danforth, Christopher ““Kit”” Bond, and John D. Ashcroft, advising them on national security and appropriations matters.