David Ogilvy (born 1911), an American business executive, was a leader in the post-World War II "creative revolution" in American advertising.

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on June 23, 1911, in West Horsley, England. He attended preparatory school in Edinburgh from 1924 to 1929 and won a scholarship in history to Christ Church College, Oxford. By his own admission an indifferent student, Ogilvy left Oxford without a degree in 1931 and spent a year as an apprentice chef in a Parisian hotel. He returned to Great Britain and supported himself by selling cooking stoves door-to-door. He was so successful that his employer asked him to prepare an instructional manual for his fellow salesmen. The manual, together with the intercession of his brother Francis, helped win him a position at the London advertising agency of Mather & Crowther. He remained there until 1939, when he decided to seek new opportunities in the United States, a country that...