Dan Nissenbaum ’88

Community Development Finance

“My personal values have certainly shaped my career choices,” says Dan Nissenbaum, senior vice president and manager of community development/CRA at HSBC Bank USA N.A. “My family was always involved with nonprofit work,” he says. Prior to business school, Nissenbaum worked for a non-profit association in Washington, D.C. and in urban economic development.

After completing his MBA, Nissenbaum decided to build upon his business skills by spending two years in middle market real estate lending at Chemical Bank, which incorporated a formal credit training program. “I then discovered bank Community Development Corporations, which seemed the perfect marriage between my career interests and my training,” he says, “It allowed me to focus on affordable housing and other economic development projects, via a bank finance position.”

In the last 13 years, Nissenbaum has worked in community development finance for Chase Manhattan, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and now HSBC.“This work is a fascinating blend of banking, transactional work, regulatory compliance, and corporate social policy,” he says. Recent deals include tax credit syndications, equity investments in small business venture funds, participation in construction loans as well as grant making to create new financing models.

As well as tangible results – like the construction of low income housing, day care centers and charter schools – Nissenbaum’s motivation comes from the broader social impact of this work. “We help build the capacity and sophistication of our nonprofit counterparts, and bring community development towards the mainstream of conventional finance” he says.