David Seltzer

David Seltzer is a Principal and co-founder of Mercator Advisors, an SEC-registered municipal financial advisory firm established in 2001 and based in Philadelphia. With more than four decades of experience in public and project finance, he has played a sustained role in advancing transportation and infrastructure investment across the United States. At Mercator, Seltzer advises federal, state, and local governmental clients on major transportation initiatives, helping shape both individual financings and broader policy approaches.

Seltzer’s career began in public finance and investment banking, where he spent twenty years structuring and advising on large-scale infrastructure financings at E.F. Hutton, Lazard Frères, and Lehman Brothers. From 1996 to 1999, he served as Senior Advisor to the Federal Highway Administrator at the U.S. Department of Transportation. During this period, he contributed to the development of “innovative finance” tools under TEA-21 and played a key role in conceptualizing and launching the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) credit program, which remains a central federal financing tool for major transportation projects.

In addition to his advisory work, Seltzer has taught graduate-level finance and accounting at the Wharton School and the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as for the University of Southern California. He has also been active in national transportation research, including service on the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board.

Seltzer’s civic involvement extends across several Philadelphia institutions. He currently chairs the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative and previously chaired Philadelphia Gas Works, the nation’s largest municipally owned gas utility. He also serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, CraftNOW Philadelphia, and the Starfinder Foundation, a youth development organization grounded in soccer-based programming. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Trinity College in Hartford and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.