David is the Priory Dean for Aotearoa New Zealand of the Order of Saint John, taking over from Monty Black. This role involves overseeing the work of Chaplains throughout the country and chairing the Chaplain's leadership Team.

David was born in 1951 in Papaioea Palmerston North. He attended Freyberg High School and then served with Volunteer Service Abroad in Fiji in 1970. He later gained Master’s degrees from Massey and Oxford universities in social science and theology respectively. After ordination to the Anglican priesthood he served in Havelock North, Tauranga, Kirikiriroa Hamilton, and in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia between 1978 and 1993.

David was ordained a bishop in 1993 for the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki, later serving as the Archbishop of the New Zealand Dioceses and one of the three primates of Te Hāhi Mihinare ki Aotearoa, ki Niu Tīreni, ki Ngā Moutere o Te Moana nui a Kiwa, The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, from 2008 to 2013.  From 2013 to 2017 he was the Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative to the Holy See and Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome. In 2014 he was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

David is patron of the Faith Community Nurses Association in Aotearoa New Zealand,  a Pīhopa Āwhina (an honorary assistant bishop) in Te Pīhopatanga o Te Manawa o Te Wheke, a trustee of several church schools, as well as a Board of Governors’ Fellow of The College House Christchurch.

David is a founding trustee of the Ngāti Hauā Mahi Trust, a tribal-based work skills and ecological planting scheme based in Morrinsville. He is a co-chair with Cardinal Tobin of New Jersey of the ‘Walking Together Foundation’ advisory committee, which seeks to fund Catholic and Anglican Bishop partnerships for aid, development, justice and peace internationally. He is also a Fellow of St Margaret’s College in the University of Otago and an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College in the University of Oxford.