Bio

Dara serves as Managing Partner at Benchmark International charged with running the Tampa Transaction office and the two transaction teams therein. His role has three primary pillars: 1. Managerial. He is responsible for the success of Benchmark International’s first US office and the two transaction teams. 2. Operational. He takes an active, leadership role in some of our more complex engagements and serves as a sounding board for the teams on all others. 3. Corporate. The third element of his role is strategic in nature; to represent the Tampa Transaction team in leadership discussions helping our leadership team to architect and navigate the path forward. He also holds the rare distinction of having served in every role over the course of his career. His career in finance started in financial services, where he was a bona fide phone basher. Further into his career, he authored dozens of business plans and pitch decks to mobilize capital and negotiated and closed dozens of deals. In addition to serving as a buyer of businesses, an operator of businesses and board member of companies contemplating an exit, he has played virtually every role in the execution of the sale of businesses. His diverse background as both an operator of business and an investor into businesses allows him to anticipate issues in deals before they happen. Having been in each of their shoes, this allows him to think like both a seller and a buyer. Before arriving at Benchmark International, Dara served as COO of GSL Solutions. GSL provides web design and content management for roughly half of the US Senate and many school districts. Before GSL, he was a VC working for three different funds and held C-Suite operational roles in several businesses. Dara was formerly Vice Chairman of Sunmark Federal Credit Union in NY.