Dana Catherine Vettel is a communications and partnerships professional with expertise in relationship building, cause marketing, campaign creation, brand development, public policy, and research. She is the Communication Officer for Partnership and Innovation at the International Fund for Agricultural Development. In this role, she initiates the fund’s advocacy and awareness efforts in building strategic partnerships and alliances as well as developing communications that highlight key IFAD partnerships and innovations for visibility.
Prior to IFAD, she ran her own consulting business DC|Digital in New York City, where she helped start-ups develop partnerships and brand identity with a focus on digital marketing campaigns. Some of her clients and partners include the Verizon Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Barnard College, and New York institutions Pearl River Mart and Shakespeare & Company. In collaboration with Equality Now, she designed the Hulu campaign Hope Lives In Every Name with the cast of the television show The Handmaid’s Tale.
Earlier in her career, she served as Assistant Director of Corporate Partnerships at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, where she managed and grew UNICEF’s partnership with Lucasfilm Star Wars: Force for Change. She also ran the national marketing team for social media at the March of Dimes Foundation where she created an impact storytelling campaign to support corporate fundraising for March for Babies. Prior to these positions, she was Associate Partnerships Manager at the United Nations’ World Food Programme where she successfully proposed, initiated, developed, and managed the organization’s partnership with Lionsgate and The Hunger Games film franchise.
Dana holds a Master degree in Public Policy from Duke University as well as dual Bachelor degrees in International Affairs and Political Science from Florida State University. She considers herself a New Yorker by way of Florida, although she currently lives in Rome, Italy.