As the managing director of Lunar Startups, Danielle is dedicated to helping problem solvers achieve their dreams and is acutely passionate about making the world a more equitable place to thrive, for all. Leveraging her origins as an over-scheduled student-athlete, she brings an intense amount of energy, a team-first mentality, and a broad range of program design experience to Lunar Startups. Danielle has also long been active in the social impact investment space, having convened and facilitated some of the first impact investing ecosystem gatherings in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
After getting her Masters in Public Administration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Danielle worked in international development, focusing on social entrepreneurship as a mechanism for creating community wealth in rural Peru. When she moved to Minnesota, Danielle served as the founding staff of Impact Hub Minneapolis St. Paul for three years, building a community of social entrepreneurs and change-makers. In her role, she was also on the founding committee of Forge North, a coalition of programs, organizations, and individuals dedicated to cultivating a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in MSP.
As a generalist, her experience and expertise span a wide range of specialties including human-centered design, evaluation, facilitation, program design, community building, marketing, partnership development, and digital media design, all driven by a bias towards collaboration.