David Nitkin

About the Author

David is an internationally-known ethicist and teacher. He has written extensively on business ethics, including three guide books that were best-selling publications for consumers, employees and investors in Canada. As a corporate responsibility professional, and president of EthicScan Canada, he has prepared over one hundred and fifty published articles and studies on corporate and organizational responsibility performance.

David is an experienced communicator. He has designed and developed education programs for many corporate clients including governments, professional associations, religious institutions, non-profit civil society organizations, and companies. As an entrepreneur he has invested in and published a number of ethics-oriented webzines, blogs and newsletters. He has written previously about religious beliefs like teshuvah, ethical decision-making, the writing of ethical wills in Judaism, and first person narratives of the lives of the patriarchs. He serves in community leadership roles like the Out of the Cold Winter Breakfast Program, Canadians For The Rule of Law, the Moslem-Jewish Dialogue, IsraelAA.ca (the Israel Activist Alliance of Canada), Canadian Friends of Tazpit, and StopSponsoringHatred.com.

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The Ethicist

Professionally, David is a rare breed in North America: a full-time organizational ethicist. The firm he founded and heads, EthicScan Canada, is a full service ethics consultancy and corporate responsibility research house. Its sixteen associates serve international public and private sector clients in North America, Europe, the Far East and the Caribbean. David does original writing, teaching, consulting and research on ethical decision making; enhancing corporate accountability and reporting; and developing corporate ethics assurance programs, including transparency, risk management, integrity management, and safe partnering.

Mr Nitkin is:

  • Founder and President of EthicScan Canada, Canada's oldest, largest and well respected, full-service corporate responsibility research house and ethics consultancy
  • Author or editor of seven books including three best-selling ethical consumer guides
  • An international speaker, writer and trainer in the area of Integrity in Business
  • Publisher of The Corporate Ethics Monitor and the EthicScan Ethics Blog
  • Past founding national president of the Ethics Practitioners Association of Canada
  • Integrity advisor, investigator and researcher for governments, civil society organizations, corporations and businesses
  • Author of over 150 published studies of corporate and organizational integrity behaviour;
  • Team manager of the EthicsAssurance© enterprise pulse taking tool; and
  • Designer and moderator of Canada’s largest offerings of ethics conferences, webinars and courses

David has provided ethics training, advice and research for over 200 clients both internationally and in Canada who collectively employ over 750,000 employees. He consults and trains widely with a variety of clients, including industry associations (on topics like the ethics of stakeholder management; external expectations of business, and corporate adaptation to climate change); public service sector organizations (integrity commissions, human rights commissions, and anti-corruption tribunals); corporations (ethics audits; updating corporate codes of responsible business practice; and benchmarking best practices); social agencies (donor screening; ethics audits; fundraising management in not-for-profits); and civil society organizations (ethical partnerships; risk and reputation management; and demographic and social futures).

Education

Mr Nitkin graduated with a MA (Historical Geography, York University), and at the top of his class in Honours BA (Geography, University of Toronto). David lectures widely on a number of ethics themes: notably, ethics assurance; the changing nature of corporate responsibility; organizational reputation management; and enhancing ethical management in organizations and business corporations.

Community

David's many volunteer and community service appointments include founding organizations such as IsraelActivistAlliance.ca, StopSponsoringHatred.com, the Moslem-Jewish Dialogue, Canadians for the Rule of Law, and the Bathurst-Lawrence Four Quadrants Neighbourhood Alliance. He serves on a number of boards and is breakfast team leader for Toronto’s Out of the Cold Program.