Ed Van Deman ’69 has spent his career saying yes to opportunity. Since graduating from Davidson College, he has built a career defined by curiosity, reinvention, and an unusual willingness to start over. His 2022 interview on Hub & Spoke with Hurt Hub Executive Director Liz Brigham ’04 traced each chapter of his life after Davidson and pointed to how a liberal arts education shaped the foundation for it all. Across industries and cities, Ed pursued what interested him, relying on perseverance, adaptability, and a steady belief that things would work out. Eventually, that path led him back to his Davidson roots.
Ed’s story began to take shape when a KPMG partner visited Davidson through the career center and offered him a job. After graduating with a B.S. in mathematics, Ed started his career in New York City, working at KPMG for a few years before he was ready for something new. He and his wife moved to Chicago, where he worked in corporate finance, managing budgeting and capital finance for a global company and traveling extensively along the way. After seven years, he was ready for a new challenge.
Through every move, one thing stayed constant: Ed pursued work that helped him grow and felt meaningful to him. When he had gotten what he needed from one chapter, he was ready for the next. From Chicago, he moved to Silicon Valley, California, and took a job at an investment management firm managing portfolios for high-net-worth individuals. He had always intended to start his own company, and the relationships he built in that role would later become the foundation for his entrepreneurial path. After four years there, he was ready for something of his own.
Ed built his next chapter from the ground up, founding Financial Navigator, Inc., a software company that provided accounting and portfolio-tracking platforms for high-net-worth individuals. Starting a company from scratch takes persistence and conviction, especially in the years when belief in the idea rests almost entirely on the founder. Ed kept building. Financial Navigator, Inc. went on to serve four clients on the Forbes 400 list, among many others, and Ed grew the company for more than three decades before it was acquired by an international fintech firm. In 2017, after a 45-year absence, Ed returned to Davidson.
He was struck by how much the campus had changed, and by the transformation of a building he had once passed without much thought into the Hurt Hub. The entrepreneurship gap he had felt as a student had been filled, and he wanted to be part of it. Through his generous support, Ed made the Van Deman Innovation Lab possible, giving students a dedicated space to develop their ventures and ideas.
He remains closely involved with the Hurt Hub today, investing in student and young alumni businesses and supporting the Davidson Entrepreneurship Club’s spring break trek to San Francisco. He is a frequent presence on campus, consulting with students and staff and consistently making introductions that expand the Hurt Hub’s network. As Liz describes it: “He visits several times a year, bursting with energy from his red-eye flight. He’s always the first one here in the morning and the last one to leave. He never shies away from making new introductions for us to those in his network, helping us expand ours.” In 2026, Ed received the Davidson College Alumni Service Award, one of the college’s highest volunteer honors, in recognition of his continued service to Davidson’s mission.
As Ed became a key part of the Hurt Hub’s story, the Hurt Hub community became a key part of his next chapter. Financial Navigator, Inc. evolved into Forest Systems, a company built around simplifying wealth and portfolio management. That work continues to reflect a lesson Ed traces back to his Davidson education: the importance of empathy. Approaching every client relationship by asking what they need and how to make their experience easier has been central to his success.
Through strategic thinking, leadership, and a willingness to take leaps of faith, Ed has learned more about himself and about business than most people do in a lifetime. He remains committed to supporting Davidson students through the Hurt Hub and hopes to be a stepping stone for someone else’s entrepreneurial journey. Everyone at the Hurt Hub is grateful for his steadfast support and inspired by his impact.
