David Ian McDonnell (born 29 March, 1983 in Dublin, Ireland) is a young entrepreneur and newspaper columnist.

As early as nine he displayed academic prowess and was deemed by a former teacher at his primary school too "grown up" for his peers. His secondary school was the prestigious Belvedere College and he still speaks fondly of his time there.

Many of the details of these years are debated but it is thought he was immensely popular amongst his peers who thought him to be a natural leader, indeed this may have been the beginnings of his successful business sojourn. He is alleged to once have stood up during an English class and given a rousing speech regarding the state of decline in Ireland infamously finishing with the line "I don’t know what everybody here thinks but God I'm proud to be well educated and of upper middle class extraction". This led him to become an integral part of the successful debating team in which he won "Debaters' Debater" three years in row. He also played cricket, with moderate success.

After school, he received a first class honours degree in law and economics from Trinity College Dublin. During his time in college he also developed a healthy drinking habit which continues to this day. Experts say this developed during his time living on Wellington Road, in the wealthy Dublin 4 area. Sources have been quoted as saying "He likes his whiskey." He followed this with a masters degree in financial econometrics from the University of Chicago. While in Chicago he also took up American Football for the first time, becoming the college team's star running back in his rookie season. The team coach at the time, Coach Tyler Carter, described him as "an outstanding prospect for the future of the sport."

McDonnell decided to oust his political leanings and instead focused on following his dream of becoming a "captain of industry". After setting up a series of production companies that had to be liquidated he finally struck gold when he took advantage of an under-utilised economic theory in which supply and demand reach symmetry due to latent economic forces. The system had gained notoriety in Lech Walesa's Poland of the early-1990s. He developed a successful wine wholesale trade in Dublin, supplying many of the city's well-known restaurants and bars. McDonnell's ruthless business manner ensured he quickly built up what analysts have referred to as his mini-monopoly. He received much praise for his work and donated a lot of his new-found wealth to poverty stricken areas of New York including the South Bronx, and also towards cultural funds in established suburban regions of London, in particular the St. John's Wood area.

McDonnell sold his wine trade to Tesco in early 2006 for an undisclosed fee. He cited "personal reasons" for the sale. Nowadays he is a respected business consultant with a Dublin-based investment firm, dealing with tax issues. He contributes a fortnightly article to The Irish Times, named Business Matters.

He divides his time between his Manhattan apartment and his family home in the Dublin suburb of Portmarnock.