Danny helps clients navigate and shape advances in technology policy and digital infrastructure in pursuit of digital justice, economic prosperity, and democracy. As leader of HR&A’s Tech & Society Studio, he is responsible for developing our platform of people, products, and partnerships to help our team generate scalable and sustainable impact for our clients.
The son of doctors, public servants, civic leaders, and social workers, Danny is a former city official, urban planner, real estate and infrastructure development advisor, civic tech pioneer, and civic engagement leader trusted by visionary leaders in the public, private, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors.
A policy polyglot and public entrepreneur, he is driven by a passion for building tools, organizations, and systems that promote people power amidst the rise of ever more powerful digital technologies.
Danny’s work ranges from designing and developing civic technology platforms to managing billion-dollar infrastructure programs, leading large-scale civic engagement efforts, and scaling new systems in government, piloting new approaches to complex challenges of community development, and institutionalizing solutions through creative approaches to funding and governance, always with a focus on systems change that serves both immediate needs and long-term resilience for communities.
As a nationally-recognized leader in broadband and digital inclusion, Danny has guided the deployment of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local investments to close the digital divide through government programs and public-private partnerships. As a strategic advisor to multiple state broadband offices, local government CIOs and economic development officers, nonprofit organizations large and small, investor-backed technology companies, and national philanthropies, Danny demonstrates how creative, thoughtful planning and diligent delivery teams can transform historic funding opportunities into sustainable infrastructure that promotes economic opportunity and improved access to healthcare, education, and civic life for all communities.
Danny’s experience in developing and scaling new data and software solutions in government and civic institutions has ranged from the design and delivery of NYC’s landmark BigApps civic hacking competition to the development of multiple new data products and the Capital Planning Platform for the City of New York, the co-creation of NYC Planning Labs to the development of new data products, visualization tools, chatbots and grants management systems for State, local, and Tribal governments.
Data-driven capital planning is core to Danny’s approach to ensuring that infrastructure investments support triple bottom line outcomes for communities and their investment partners. As Founding Director of the Capital Planning Division of the New York City Department of City Planning, he redesigned the systems by which the City develops and publishes its Ten-Year Capital Strategy, helping to make it more transparent to all New Yorkers. He also conceived of the $1 billion Neighborhood Development Fund that he managed to align infrastructure investments with neighborhood planning and rezoning, ensuring that new development is supported by public infrastructure and facility improvements that foster community resilience and growth. As Co-Chair of the City’s long-term plan for core infrastructure and services, he was responsible for delivering Mayoral priorities in the City’s capital budget.
Leading large-scale civic engagement efforts has been equally important to Danny’s ability to achieve results for government and civic clients. In 2013, he served as Project Director for Talking Transition, a first-of-its-kind program to open the process of a mayoral transition to the public – a program that reached more than 70,000 New Yorkers and helped launch HR&A’s transitions practice. Over the course of his career, teams that Danny has led have hosted hundreds of community events and focus groups and collected insights from nearly 150,000 survey respondents.
With a long history of structuring and stewarding successful public-private partnerships, Danny understands how to deliver complex transactions that maximize public benefit while leveraging private sector capabilities. Beyond digital infrastructure, such partnerships have included real estate development projects like Pier 57 in the Hudson River Park, transportation infrastructure like Fulton Center in Lower Manhattan and the Saint Paul Union Depot, and large-scale land development projects like London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This experience, combined with his evaluation of the economic and fiscal impacts of tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure investments, provides him with sophisticated capabilities for assessing project feasibility and identifying optimal financing strategies that serve diverse stakeholder interests.
Danny holds a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in Architecture and Urban Studies from Yale University.
- Founding Director, Capital Planning Division, NYC Department of City Planning
Projects
HR&A worked with the City of Dallas and stakeholders to craft an Economic Development Policy and Incentives Policy to proactively address disparities in economic opportunity through policy, public investment, and partnership. As advisors, analysts, subject matter experts, and external capacity, HR&A helped ensure that the implementation of the policy would provide measurable impacts and improvements to businesses and communities across Dallas.
HR&A led an interdisciplinary team working with the Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer to develop New York City's first Internet Master Plan, addressing the digital divide affecting nearly one-third of city households. Our comprehensive strategy established frameworks for public-private collaboration, governance, and financing that enabled the City to commit $157 million toward expanding affordable broadband access to 600,000 New Yorkers, including innovative procurement approaches that experts have praised as among the nation's boldest universal broadband initiatives.
HR&A serves as lead strategic advisor and program manager to the California Department of Technology, helping to deliver the nation's largest middle mile broadband investment and building the state's digital equity ecosystem. We function as an extension of state leadership teams, building organizational capacity, delivering complex quantitative and qualitative analytics, and engaging thousands of Californians alongside hundreds of local governments, community organizations, and technology companies to design programs, secure funding, and drive measurable impact.
HR&A developed and continues to advance a comprehensive Strategic Broadband Action Plan for Clark County, Nevada, home to 70 percent of the state's residents. Our multi-phase approach has helped the County secure over $11 million in federal funding, establish a Broadband Program Office, and position Clark County as a national leader in equitable broadband deployment and digital inclusion.
HR&A worked with the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians of California to assess broadband connectivity solutions for their sovereign tribal nation of over 2,000 members. Through comprehensive feasibility analysis and community engagement, HR&A developed a strategic deployment plan that identified two viable pathways—a tribally owned wireless network and household service subsidies—to address critical connectivity gaps in this underserved Sierra National Forest community.
HR&A is serving as lead strategic advisor and program manager to New York's ConnectALL Office and supporting the investment of more than $1.5 billion to close the state's digital divide.
