As our incredible staff continues to grow rapidly, it is necessary for us to meet the ever-increasing capacity demands linked to scaling housing with lasting affordability. Following a robust outreach and recruitment process to identify multiple skilled leaders to join our team, we are thrilled to announce the hiring of three uniquely talented individuals for our Executive Leadership Team. Our three new team members will contribute to further evolving Grounded Solutions into a specialized national resource hub to expand our diverse lasting affordability ecosystem.
With that in mind, please join us in welcoming and learning more about Cielo Contreras, Doug Ryan, and Dave Smith.
Cielo Contreras — Vice President of Development
Joining the Grounded Solutions Network team in April as our Vice President of Development is Cielo Contreras. Cielo most recently served as the Senior Director of Development for CityWorks DC and comes with a tremendous track record of building, maintaining, and growing relationships with institutional funders. Cielo’s development strategies have successfully secured millions of dollars in new funding commitments for non-profit community development organizations. We are thrilled to add Cielo’s knowledge, leadership, and talents to our team.
Doug Ryan — Vice President of Housing Policy
We are all thrilled to welcome Doug Ryan as the new leader of our policy team, serving as our Vice President of Housing Policy. Doug’s arrival heralds the unification of our internal federal policy team with our state and local policy team for greater focus and coordination. His vast experience in influencing and successfully leading policy change will allow us to achieve specific housing outcomes at the local, state, and federal levels. Doug brings a clear understanding of the existing highly complex and ever-changing landscape of housing policy.
Dave Smith — Chief Program Officer
Joining us as our first-ever Chief Program Officer is Dave Smith. Dave’s keen strategic mind is a tremendous asset to our work, and he knows how to take a strategy from concept to reality. Dave’s expertise is centered on structuring activities and initiatives that fully engage both various internal staff teams and the required external partners, whose collective actions are required to achieve measurable outcomes .” Dave is also very much a “people person” with many strong existing relationships with leaders across our U.S. based network and throughout the international social housing sector. He also has a proven track record of creating and leading successful housing-focused social impact measurement and evaluation activities, which is particularly relevant to his pivotal leadership role at Grounded Solutions.
