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As the Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications for World Trade Center Properties, LLC and Silverstein Properties, Inc., Dara manages the public relations, media, advertising, documentary, branding and communications aspects of the Silverstein organization's efforts to rebuild at the World Trade Center site.

Highlights of Dara's work include the building, opening and marketing of 7 WTC - for which his group was awarded a Silver Anvil from the Public Relations Society of America; unveiling designs for the iconic Freedom Tower and the towers designed by Pritzker prize-winning architects Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki; Silverstein's successful "two occurrence" insurance litigation; launching several WTC websites; developing a long-term World Trade Center branding, marketing and merchandising strategy; and developing a program to document the rebuilding project through feature films, TV documentaries, books, photographs, artwork and interactive media.

Previously, Dara was the Communications & Media Manager of Shearman & Sterling LLP, a corporate law firm of 1,000 lawyers in 19 cities around the world. Based in New York, he was responsible for devising and managing strategies to maintain and build the firm's reputation, image and visibility. In June 2003, Dara's group was awarded a Silver Anvil from the PRSA for its work on behalf of a Sept. 11 pro bono client of the firm.

Dara began his career as a journalist at Variety and Daily Variety in Los Angeles. He has also worked at Academy Award-winning Merchant Ivory Productions, Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Center in New York and at Universal Pictures.

Earlier in his career, Dara worked in the Department of Public Information of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, and in New York, where he wrote an analytical and historical study of the United Nations library that became an official publication of the UN.

Born in Ireland and raised in Brussels, Belgium, Dara studied at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland where he graduated with a Master's degree in Philosophy. He spent a year as an Erasmus Scholar at the University of Bologna, Italy, where he studied Italian and philosophy under Umberto Eco. Upon graduation, Dara won a Bobby Jones Jr. Graduate Fellowship to UCLA.