Highland Creek Advisors was founded by Don Graves to help organizations navigate the complexities of a changing world, and to ensure that growth and opportunity reach every shore.

Don has spent his life working at the intersection of public service, private investment, and community resilience. From Main Street to the White House, from Fortune 100 boardrooms to neighborhoods rebuilding after crisis, Don has been a steady hand and a strategic guide, always focused on the people and places too often left behind.

As the former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Don was the chief operating officer of a department with more than 46,000 employees and an $11 billion budget. He helped lead the design and implementation of some of the most transformative investments in America’s recent history: the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

His leadership shaped national strategies on supply chains, broadband access, innovation, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and inclusive economic growth. He worked across sectors to build new public-private partnerships and ensured that federal investments reached communities with the greatest need and potential.

He spearheaded the Obama Administration’s response to Detroit’s bankruptcy, led the Biden Administration’s long-term recovery and investment in Puerto Rico strategy, and advised major financial institutions on community reinvestment,.

The North Star of Don’s ethos has always been his belief that economic opportunity should be accessible to all, and that equity is not just a moral imperative, but a strategic one. It’s a conviction rooted in his family’s history in Highland Beach, Maryland, a historic Black community founded by leaders who created their own institutions, built their own power, and lit their own way forward.