Employee Spotlight: Dan Kessler, Citizen’s Chief Business Officer

Earlier this year, Citizen announced that it acquired disaster preparedness technology firm harbor, in order to expand the product offerings of Citizen for its rapidly growing base of 10 million users.

Harbor CEO Dan Kessler joined Citizen as Chief Business Officer to support the company’s continued product evolution. We recently sat down with him to learn more about Dan’s background, his philosophy around personal safety and why he’s so excited about the future of Citizen.

Q: You’ve joined Citizen as our Chief Business Officer, what is your primary focus in this role?

A: At Citizen, I’m focusing on operational excellence throughout our organization and that means I’m involved in everything from five year planning to weekly activities, working with departments to ensure the teams are fully aligned. I have the great pleasure of working across the company from finance to business development to our radio operations.

Citizen has seen incredible growth over the past couple of years, and we are setting up the organization to scale even further. Citizen is a startup with a clear product market fit and my goal is to support Citizen becoming the global leader in mobile safety.

Q: Why do you feel that harbor was an ideal acquisition for Citizen?

A: At harbor we were very focused on safety, making disaster preparation accessible for all. We accomplished this through strong technology, gamification and compelling content. Both harbor and Citizen’s vision for the world and how to keep people safer felt aligned; it was kismet. Joining forces is a force multiplier, allowing us to build a massive company around global safety.

Q: How has your career led you here?

A: I’m someone who has always worked across startups, focusing on scaling companies via hiring, managing budgets, setting up processes, you name it.

I have experience in both technology and media and the Citizen platform required knowledge of both. From my film production experience to working on The Daily Show, I know how to reach audiences and I’m thrilled I get to do that here with a focus on safety.

My time working at Headspace and building a beloved global brand is also very applicable to Citizen. The company has a lot of opportunity to be the brand that makes everyone feel safe in the same way that Headspace makes everyone feel happy.

At every step of my career I’ve worked with subscription businesses and I’ve never seen a better opportunity for a subscription business than Citizen’s Protect.

Q: What trends are you seeing in the personal safety space?

A: Safety is on everyone’s mind. We’re living through such challenging times — wildfires, wars and the pandemic — and we’re experiencing much of this through what we discover on our phones.

Now, every time our phone buzzes, we think: what is it this time? While mobile technology does help keep people more informed, it has not evolved much to actually make people safer and that’s where Citizen comes in.

With Citizen we have an opportunity to use technology for good. Our platform unlocks a nearby safety network, our information is distributed at lighting speed and we’re helping people become more situationally aware.

I’m especially excited to help Citizen users focus on the signal, not the noise. So while you might turn to other apps to doom scroll, it’s not what you should be doing with the Citizen App.

Q: What are mobile apps you can’t live without? What do you love about them?

A: I’ve recently had to remove TikTok from my phone because it was too addictive. Otherwise, I can’t live without all connected home apps like SmartThings and Nest. These are mainstays for me and my family.

I am a big to-do list guy, and manage my life 100% from ToDoist. As someone who has used them all, that is the best one. Finally, of course, my Headspace app, which I use daily.

Q: How will Citizen evolve and continue to benefit communities?

A: Citizen is one of those rare businesses that can truly do good for the world. Whether we’re helping reunite a missing person with their loved ones or just letting people know what’s going on around them, Citizen is hyper focused on safety.

We already impact communities every single day and we have a massive opportunity to do more. Moving forward, we are tapping into how best to work with more nonprofits and community organizations to benefit local communities. Safety is not just for the well connected or the wealthy, Citizen believes safety should be democratized for everybody.

To learn more about how you can support Citizen’s mission and join the team, see our latest job opportunities here.