King W. Gillespie is the founder and chief executive officer of The Endeavour Group. Colonel Gillespie, USAF (Ret.) re-formed Endeavour as a Virginia based Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) in 2011. A highly respected DoD and Air Force expert with a demonstrated track record of achieving superior business outcomes, he brings well over 25 years of military and private sector experience in strategy formulation and organizational development. Recognized as a transformational leader, Mr. Gillespie is adroit at leading complex, multi-disciplinary organizations. Through Endeavour, he assists C-suite leaders in resolving their most intractable problems, delivering results and building value.

As Endeavour’s chief executive, Mr. Gillespie is the steward of an innovative consultancy which supports both the public and private sector with organizational and transformational C-suite solutions; providing expertise in policy development and implementation, offering effective and integrated strategic planning and performance management solutions, and helping clients implement innovative enterprise-wide solutions. He has helped position a number of companies and governmental entities for the next generation of success, by executing sound plans that deliver results. He has built Endeavour to be a force for positive change. Mr. Gillespie has been a lifelong champion of strategic planning and organizational development. A demonstrated leader in policy formulation and implementation, strategic leadership, and organizational development, he has been highly successful leading and executing complex and multi-disciplinary programs at all organizational levels.

Also, since September 2020, he has been a Board Member of the Reserve Forces Policy Board, which serves as an independent advisor to Secretary of Defense on Reserve and National Guard matters.

During the 1990’s he led a six year organizational change initiative for the U. S. Air Force Reserve. More recently and prior to re-establishment of Endeavour, he served as the first Chief, Strategy and Performance at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) - Office of the Deputy Chief Management Officer (ODCMO). He revitalized DoD strategic planning, performance management and business mission area governance, and linked DoD’s business plans to the budget. He improved high-level department governance meetings such as the Defense Business Council (DBC) and other Principal Staff Assistant (PSA) forums. Mr. Gillespie last served in government as a Senior Analyst for the congressionally enacted National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force. As a key contributor, his critical findings and recommendations served as the basis of the Commission's final report to Congress, recommending the reorganizing of the U.S. Air Force in a manner consistent with available resources. Prior to joining the Air Force on active duty, Mr. Gillespie worked for Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, and Xerox.

Mr. Gillespie currently serves on the board of a veteran based non-profit. Mr. Gillespie is a member of a number of military organizations and held offices in many, most recently as the Vice President of Chapter One of the Reserve Officer Association (ROA). In the past he has been a member of the Business Round Table and a volunteer consultant for the Atlanta based Business Executive Council, where he helped the State of Georgia and non-profits build their strategic plans.

Mr. Gillespie earned a B.B.A. degree in finance from the University of Texas at Arlington and a M.B.A. from Texas Christian University. He is a 2004 in-residence graduate of the U.S. Air Force Air War College and a Brookings Institution Legislative Fellow, serving as U.S. Senator Dirk Kempthorne’s Military Legislative Assistant in 1997. He is fluent in German and proficient in French and Luxembourgian. His military awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal and Legion of Merit.

(As of April 2020)