LinkedIn Profile

DAVID RICHARD THOMPSON

SECRETARY GENERAL

Co-Founder WFPF, IPF and USA Parkour, Board Member IPTC (International Professional Training Certification), Board Member USA Sports Council, Co-Executive Producer MTV’s ULTIMATE PARKOUR CHALLENGE, Board member and volunteer “Second Families” Syrian/Iraqi refugee resettlement organization of Southern California.

Since 2006, David has been involved in the Parkour world when his colleague Victor Bevine called him from New York and asked him, “Have you ever heard of Parkour?” Born in Beirut, Lebanon to American and Canadian parents (David had dual USA/Canada citizenship), raised in Morocco, the Middle East, Washington D.C., and Paris, David (aka Da’ud) speaks French like a native. He did his university and graduate work in the fields of International Relations, French, and Communications at the George Washington University, New York University, La Sorbonne, and L’Institut de Sciences Politiques in Paris. David’s cultural fluency, years of living around the world, along with two years spent as the Los Angeles Director/VP of Development and Distribution for a foreign television/film distribution start-up, positions David as a natural liaison for the WFPF to the International Parkour Freerunning community, with its deep roots in the French Moroccan suburbs of Paris where it originated.

David has been creatively involved in television, film, music and photography for the past 25 years, as an actor, producer, director, writer, singer/songwriter/musician, business owner, and entrepreneur.
As a mentor and teacher, David worked for many non-profits working with youth in the Los Angeles area. He also served as a consultant to RKO’s non- profit “The Story Project” where he developed a gang prevention film program, mentoring at-risk youth in East L.A. for several years. It was working with one of these non-profits that David met his future business partner Victor Bevine, where their diverse backgrounds and mutual desire to help build a better world by helping youth, spawned their present parkour organizations, WFPF, IPF, and USA Parkour. He continues his mentorship work by helping parkour athletes around the world create their own individual paths in the sport.