Dr. David W. Miller

David W. Miller is director of the Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative and the president of the Avodah Institute. He is also an associate research scholar who teaches at Princeton. Prior to this, he was at Yale University for five years, where he served as the executive director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.

Dr. Miller brings an unusual bilingual perspective to the academic world, having spent 16 years in senior positions in international business and finance. He did undergraduate studies at Bucknell University and received his Ph.D. and M.Div. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). While working on his doctorate in 1999, Miller co-founded The Avodah Institute. Avodah’s mission is to help leaders integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work.

Prior to working in academia, Miller lived and worked in London for eight years, where he was an equity partner in a private bank specializing in international investment management, corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions. Before that, he was a senior executive and director of the securities services and global custody division of Midland Bank PLC (now part of the HSBC Group). He first moved to London as the managing director of the European operations of State Street Bank and Trust, a leading U.S. securities services bank. He began his management career in the U.S. after graduating from Bucknell University in 1979, working for IBM for eight years in a variety of sales and marketing management positions in New Jersey and New England. Miller also speaks German, having lived, studied, and worked in Germany.

He serves as an advisor to several corporate CEOs and senior executives on questions pertaining to ethics, values, integrating faith and work, and becoming a faith-friendly company. He is a frequent speaker at gatherings of business leaders, industry associations, academic conferences, and large church programs. His views are often cited in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Fortune Magazine, Forbes, NPR, ABC, NBC, and CNN.

He finds inspiration in the lives and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Stott. His wife, Karen, is a former lawyer and law school professor. He enjoys being with his nieces, playing tennis, bridge, and tandem cycling. He is active in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“Why Work?” by Dorothy Sayers, featuring an original introduction by David W. Miller

Selected Publications and Scholarly Work

• God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement (2006)