David O. Renz is the Beth K. Smith/Missouri Chair in Nonprofit Leadership and the director of the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, the nonprofit leadership research and development center of the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Renz earned a master of arts degree in industrial relations in 1978 and a Ph.D. with a concentration in organization theory and administration in 1981, both from the University of Minnesota.

Renz teaches and conducts research on nonprofit and public service governance and leadership, especially, on strategies for improving nonprofit organization and board effectiveness. He writes extensively for both the scholarly and practice communities and has published reports, chapters, and articles in a wide variety of journals, including Nonprofit Management and Leadership, The Nonprofit Quarterly, Strategic Governance, Public Productivity and Management Review, Public Administration Review, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

Renz has served public service organizations in many capacities, including consulting and service on many councils, task forces, and governing boards. He is past president of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council, a network of university-based nonprofit centers that he helped found, and has served as an officer and on the governing boards of many nonprofit field-building organizations, including the Association for Nonprofit Research and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), the Fieldstone Alliance, and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers. In 2015, he served as the founding president of the Governance Section of ARNOVA. He also is active in several networks of nonprofit capacity building consultants and organizations, including the Alliance for Nonprofit Management and the statewide nonprofit association, Nonprofit Missouri. For eight years, Renz also served as executive director of Kansas City's Clearinghouse for Midcontinent Foundations. Prior to joining the University of Missouri system, he was a Minneapolis-based consultant and taught at the University of St. Thomas. His career includes several senior executive positions in government, including executive director of the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities and assistant commissioner of administration for the State of Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.