David R. Young received a Bachelor of Science in physics from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1959. He then studied Law at Oxford University and Cornell Law School, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence, from Oxford in 1963 and a Juris Doctor degree from Cornell University in 1964. He qualified at the New York Bar and as a Barrister at the English bar in 1965. He began his career in the law with the New York firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in 1965.
In 1968 he was seconded by Milbank Tweed to the Rockefeller Family where he became Treasurer of the Rockefeller for the President Campaign Committee and met Dr. Henry Kissinger, then advising Nelson Rockefeller.
From 1969 he was first an Administrative Assistant and from 1971, Special Assistant to Dr. Kissinger in the White House and until 1973 a member of the National Security Council Staff in Washington, D.C. In 1974 he returned to Oxford University to earn a Doctor of Philosophy degree in International Relations, which he completed in 1981.
In 1975 he established Oxford Analytica, an international consulting firm drawing on the scholarship of Oxford University and other major universities to provide business and government leaders with timely and authoritative analysis of world events.
Since 1975 he has also served as Lecturer in Politics at Queen’s college, Oxford University. In addition, he is a Senior Associate Member of St. Anthony’s College, a Dominus Fellow of St. Catherine’s College and Senior Common Room Member of University College. Since 1980 he has been an Associate Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
He is married to Susannah Kelly and lives in Oxford, England with their five children.