Dan Doonan is the executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security. With the Board of Directors, Doonan leads the organization’s strategic planning, retirement research and education initiatives.

Doonan has more than 25 years of experience working on retirement issues from different vantage points including an analyst, consultant, trainer and even a plan trustee. In these various roles, the consistent theme has been his belief that Americans have a shared interest in creating and maintaining a resilient retirement infrastructure that provides adequate financial support in an efficient manner.

Under his leadership, NIRS membership has increased by 25 percent and he has further strengthened the organization’s reputation as a trusted source of reliable retirement data and information. At NIRS, Doonan has authored or co-authored more than 30 reports on a wide range of retirement topics and testified before various state and federal legislative bodies, including the U.S Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Doonan serves as a frequent conference speaker and is regularly cited in the news media on a broad range of retirement policy issues.

Prior to NIRS, Doonan served as a senior pension specialist with the National Education Association. There he co-authored Characteristics of Large Public Education Pension Plans, a detailed report this is considered to be a definitive resource of information about large public education retirement plans. Doonan began his career at the Department of Labor as a mathematical statistician. He then spent seven years performing actuarial analysis with Buck Consultants in their retirement practice. His experience also includes positions as a research director and labor economist.

Doonan holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Elizabethtown College, and he is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.