David Wilhelm (born October 2, 1956) is a global renewable energy developer, currently working for Hecate Energy. Formerly, Wilhelm worked in the venture capital space and as a political campaign manager; most notably serving as Campaign Manager for the 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, and later as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

He was raised in Athens, Ohio, and has started many transformational projects and funds in the area. Wilhelm later settled in Chicago, Illinois, and now resides in Columbus, Ohio.

He received his B.A. from Ohio University, as well as a Master of Public Policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has received honorary doctorates from Ohio University, the University of Charleston, and Wheeling Jesuit University.

Wilhelm has taught or served as a fellow at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Ohio University, DePaul University, and the University of Akron.

David Wilhelm was born on October 2, 1956, in Champaign, Illinois, to Hubert and Constance Wilhelm, who were undergraduates at the University of Illinois at that time. Wilhelm is a first-generation American; his father is a native of Krauschwitz, Germany, and was brought to the United States as a high school aged refugee of war-torn Germany by a Brethren Church farm family living near Auburn, Illinois (about 20 miles south of Springfield).

Wilhelm's pre-school years consisted of brief family stays in Champaign, Illinois, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while his father completed a PhD in Geography at Louisiana State University. Two sisters, Diana and Suzanne, were added to the mix and, in 1963, the Wilhelm family, now totaling five, moved to Athens, Ohio, where Wilhelm's father had accepted an offer to join the faculty of Ohio University, a position he held until his retirement 35 years later.

Wilhelm took to political organizing and strategy at a young age. In sixth grade, he led his fellow Safety Patrol workers on a strike over an unnecessary twenty minutes they were forced to stay in their posts long after the last student departing school had crossed the street. When he was twelve, he would conduct surveys of college students to determine whether Eugene McCarthy or Robert F. Kennedy had greater support. When he was sixteen, he helped manage the successful campaign of his social studies teacher, Peter Lalich, for a seat on Athens City Council.

Wilhelm attended Ohio University as a National Merit Scholar, graduating in August 1977, with a BA in Government. He was named the Outstanding Undergraduate in Government that year and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. While at Ohio University, Wilhelm continued political campaigning. At the age of 19, he was the first staffer hired by the then nascent Jimmy Carter presidential campaign in the State of Ohio. He was given the assignment of recruiting delegates and alternates in each of Ohio's congressional districts for the relatively unknown Georgia Governor. His work led to the filing of a complete slate of delegates and alternates, something that Carter's opponents failed, by and large, to match, providing the Carter campaign with a strong competitive advantage in Ohio.