RELEASE: Dario Hidalgo Appointed Executive Director of Fundación Despacio

WASHINGTON, DC (January 11, 2019) – After 11 years at WRI, Dario Hidalgo will become the Executive Director of Fundación Despacio, a non-profit research center created in 2008 by Carlos F Pardo based in Bogotá, Colombia, that strives to promote a better quality of life for people in cities.

Despacio advances unconventional ways to promote bicycling, walking and public transport; mitigate and adapt to climate change; and adopt "slower" lifestyles at home and work. Despacio has produced more than 20 publications and implemented more than 100 projects on three continents.

Dario Hidalgo has been part of WRI since 2007, when he joined as Deputy General Manager for the EMBARQ program, a special initiative of WRI Ross Center. During his tenure at WRI, he was instrumental in expanding the program’s activities to new geographies and topics. He helped create the program in India, and supported WRI’s work in Latin America, Turkey, Southeast Asia and more recently in Africa. He guided WRI’s work in public transport, and initiated activities in improved vehicles and fleets, walking and bicycling, road safety, transit-oriented development, and emerging technologies. He steered WRI’s urban mobility team worldwide, mentoring staff, working on dozens of projects with local and national governments and building capacity. He has been and will continue to be an active contributor to WRI’s research efforts, publishing both internally and externally, as well as TheCityFix blog.

Hidalgo will remain a Senior Mobility Consultant for WRI Ross Center, and the new position in his hometown of Bogotá is a great opportunity to expand WRI’s activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. We thank him for his many contributions, wish him success in his new designation and look forward to a long and productive partnership.

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About WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities helps create accessible, equitable, healthy and resilient urban areas for people, businesses and the environment to thrive. Together with partners, it enables more connected, compact and coordinated cities. The Center expands the transport and urban development expertise of the EMBARQ network to catalyze innovative solutions in other sectors, including water, buildings, land use and energy. It combines the research excellence of WRI with 15 years of on-the-ground impact through a network of more than 250 experts working from Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Mexico and Turkey to make cities around the world better places to live.