Cara E. Yar Khan

A former White House political appointee who served as a senior advisor on international disability rights in the U.S. Department of State, Cara Yar Khan is now CEO of a NYC-based boutique consulting firm, The Purple Practice. 

Cara is a professional public speaker and is presently working with Global Disability Innovation Hub on the world's most ambitious scaling blended finance vehicle for accessible and assistive technology ventures.

Cara began her international career in 2001 with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Ecuador followed by an executive role in corporate communications for Dell Technologies in Panama. In 2007 Cara joined UNICEF Angola in 2007 to cultivate corporate partnerships. This led to a year with UNICEF China, followed by UNICEF assignments in Madagascar, Mozambique, Thailand and finally Haiti. 

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. Cara is the participant of the Oscar-qualifying short documentary film, Facing the Falls, directed by Celia Aniskovich and executive produced by Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.  

Finally, Cara 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. carayarkhan.com