As the Marketing & Communications Director of 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, marketing, opening and leasing of 7 WTC; unveiling designs for the iconic Freedom Tower and the towers designed by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki; the July 4th Freedom Tower cornerstone ceremony – for which his group was awarded a Silver Anvil from the Public Relations Society of America; Silverstein's "two occurrence" insurance litigation; launching a wtc.com website; developing a long-term World Trade Center branding and marketing strategy; and developing a program to document the rebuilding project through feature films, TV documentaries, books, photographs, websites 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.

Earlier in his career, Dara worked at Academy Award-winning Merchant Ivory Productions and at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Center in New York. He also worked as a writer in the marketing and publicity department of Universal Pictures.

Dara began his career as a journalist at Variety and Daily Variety in Los Angeles. He has also 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.