Cara Yar Khan

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After Cara Yar Khan’s tenure as a White House Presidential Appointee, serving in the U.S. Department of State as a senior advisor on international disability rights in U.S. foreign policy, she established a NYC-based boutique consulting firm, The Purple Practice, which brokers disability-inclusive impact partnerships and investments. Cara is currently working with UK-based Disability Innovation Hub on the world’s most ambitious scaling vehicle for accessible and assistive technology ventures. The fund aims to raise and invest up to $100 million over the next ten years.

In her role as a Global Disability Advocate, Cara Yar Khan was selected by the Governments of Germany and Jordan – and the International Disability Alliance – to moderate and host the 2025 Global Disability Summit in Berlin and presented at the 2024 Global Citizen Festival in NYC for 60,000 people. Cara also presented at the G7 Ministerial on Inclusion and Disability in Italy and at the 2024 Paris Paralympics Games. In June 2025 Cara will be speaking  at the UN Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at events organized by the UK government and the Italian Ministry of Disability.

Cara Yar Khan started her international career in 2001 with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Ecuador, followed by an executive role in corporate communications for Dell Technologies in Panama. In 2007, Cara joined the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Angola to cultivate corporate partnerships. This led to a year with UNICEF China, and then assignments in  Madagascar, Mozambique, Thailand and then two years in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Cara is the participant of the short documentary film, Facing the Falls, directed by Celia Aniskovich, produced by Liz Yale Marsh and executive produced by Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.   Based in NYC, Cara serves on the Inclusion Committee for the Times Square Alliance and the Advisory Board of ReelAbilities.  In December 2019 Cara was the closing guest speaker at TED Women presenting, The beautiful balance between courage and fear which has been viewed almost 3 million times and has been translated into 27 languages.

Finally, Cara Yar Khan 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.

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