Cara Yar Khan

Cara Yar Khan joined GDI Hub as a senior advisor after serving in a White House political appointment as a senior advisor on International Disability Rights at the U.S. Department of State. Cara brings 25 years experience in international development, humanitarian emergencies, disability rights, corporate communications & partnerships and fundraising with her.

Cara began her international career in 2001 with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Ecuador followed by a senior executive role in corporate communications for Dell Technologies in Panama. In 2007 Cara joined the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Angola in 2007 to cultivate multi-million corporate partnerships. This led to a year with UNICEF China to support the Sichuan Earthquake Emergency Response, followed by UNICEF assignments in Madagascar, Mozambique, Thailand and finally Haiti where she served as the Resource Mobilization Specialist and Disability Focal Point for two years after the devastating 2010 Earthquake. In 2014 Cara moved to the USA to work with UNICEF USA and then transitioned into public speaking and UN consulting.

In December 2019 Cara was the closing guest speaker at TED Women presenting, The beautiful balance between courage and fear which has been viewed more than 2.6 million times and has been translated into 27 languages. Cara also is the protagonist of a short documentary film called Facing the Falls, with executive producers by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. She has a masters degree in International Public Policy from John Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Italy and is accomplished in languages, fluent in Spanish, with working knowledge of French and Portuguese and basic Mandarin Chinese.