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David Daoud

Principal Analyst / President

About David

David Daoud is a seasoned analyst and strategic advisor with nearly three decades of experience at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and enterprise governance. He is the Founder and President of Compliance Standards LLC, where he leads advisory and research work focused on circular IT strategies, the IT asset disposition (ITAD) sector, sustainable tech, ISMS, compliance and adjacent areas such as ESG compliance, vendor risk, and sustainable infrastructure.

David began his research career in 1996, specializing in mainstream IT hardware markets, and by 2003, had become the first analyst to systematically study the emerging challenges and opportunities in IT hardware disposition. While at IDC, he launched the GRADE Certification program — a vendor evaluation framework mentioned by companies like Dell, HP, IBM Global Asset Recovery Services and Unisys — and has since remained a trusted industry voice for clients seeking to understand the evolving lifecycle of enterprise IT assets.

Today, David provides strategic foresight and hands-on consulting to companies operating across multiple technology sectors.

His areas of expertise include:

  • Market and regulatory analysis for ITADs, OEMs, and data center operators

  • Strategic planning around sustainability, innovation, and risk mitigation

  • Enterprise procurement advisory with a focus on ISMS compliance, cybersecurity, and ESG-aligned vendor audits

  • AI’s emerging role in traceability, refurbishment, decommissioning, and responsible IT management

As an independent advisor, David is frequently called on to brief and consult with clients across Silicon Valley, New York, Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan Singapore, North America and elsewhere. He works closely with both operational leaders and investment teams to help anticipate market shifts, align roadmaps with geopolitical and sustainability risks, and build future-proof frameworks for growth and compliance.

David is also a contributor to industry publications including Resource Recycling and E-Scrap News, where he explores the intersection of circularity, regulation, and innovation in IT.

He is currently authoring a new book titled Sustainable IT in the Age of AI: How Companies Can Lead on Responsible IT Use, to be published by De Gruyter in 2026. The book will address how artificial intelligence is reshaping every stage of the IT lifecycle — from procurement and optimization to decommissioning and ESG reporting — and will feature case studies from across the IT, ITAM and ITAD ecosystems.

Prior to founding Compliance Standards, David worked as a Research Analyst for IDG/Computerworld, a Data Analyst at Harvard University, and taught computer science and English as an Adjunct Faculty member in Massachusetts.

He studied economics at Algiers University and Suffolk University in Boston, and is certified in ESG Investing from the Wharton School of Business.

Connect with David:

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  • User adoption strategies and practices 100% 100%
  • Market economics 100% 100%
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Some of David's Recent Work

IBM’s 2025 Breach Data Puts ITAD Providers Inside the Vendor-Risk Perimeter

Jul 8, 2026

The global average breach cost at $4.44 million, according to IBM. Healthcare leads all industries at $7.42 million, followed by financial services at $5.56 million, industrial at $5.00 million, energy at $4.83 million, and technology at $4.79 million. Supply-chain compromise, where ITAD sists, ranks as the second-costliest attack vector at $4.91 million per incident, trailing only malicious insider incidents at $4.92 million. Phishing averages $4.80 million and stolen credentials $4.67 million. For ITAD providers, the supply-chain figure is the number that matters. Enterprise procurement teams now treat disposition vendors as part of the same risk perimeter as any other third party with access to sensitive data. Governance maturity, documentation quality, and audit readiness are becoming primary evaluation criteria, alongside processing capacity and recovery rates. Providers serving healthcare and financial services face buyers with the highest breach-cost exposure and the strongest incentive to demand governance-mature partners.

M&A: Telamon acquires 21-year-old ITAD consultancy Retire-IT, retaining founder Kyle Marks

Jul 8, 2026

Telamon Corporation has acquired Retire-IT, with founder Kyle Marks staying on as VP of ITAD services under Telamon’s enterprise services division. The deal follows Telamon’s 2025 hire of Mark Vander Kooy, a former ITAD executive whose earlier company was acquired into what became CloudBlue — a sequence that reads as a company using an experienced operator to identify a target before buying one.

What makes this deal notable is that Retire-IT doesn’t process equipment; it’s a managed-service and tracking layer that oversees roughly three dozen certified processors on clients’ behalf, a model Marks calls “defensible IT disposition.” Marks argues the acquisition points to a broader shift in enterprise ITAD, away from processors vouching for their own compliance and toward separating execution from independent oversight, though whether that’s an industry-wide trend or one operator’s thesis remains to be seen. Full analysis, including Telamon’s revenue and customer figures, sourcing details, and the two open questions likely to matter most to clients of both firms, available to Compliance Standards subscribers.

Client Brief: Samsung Just Posted the Largest Tech Profit Yet Reported: Old Memory Now Costs More Than AI Chips

Jul 8, 2026

Samsung’s Q2 2026 operating profit of roughly KRW89.4 trillion (~$58.4 billion) is attributed almost entirely to its memory business. The South Korean tech giant has not yet disclosed a divisional breakdown but market expectation is that the Device Solutions (DRAM, NAND, HBM) division carried the bulk of the profit, while the consumer electronics division posted comparatively weak results due to its own rising component costs.
The mechanism behind that is directly relevant to component pricing in the ITAD channel. DRAM contract prices are up 58–63% quarter-on-quarter and NAND Flash up 70–75% QoQ. Legacy memory has been hit hardest by scarcity, with DDR4 spot pricing running above even advanced HBM3e, which is a real inversion where end-of-life memory costs more per gigabit than the chip industry’s most advanced product.

That inversion is the number to watch. It means components pulled from older, decommissioned enterprise hardware are sitting on unusually strong resale value right now. Industry commentary places relief no earlier than late 2027–2028, so this is a multi-quarter pricing environment, not a one-time spike, though it is a window, not a new floor.