Cara Yar Khan

Activist, Agnostic, Business leader, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Entrepreneur, Filmmaker, Idea generator, Producer, Project manager, Promoter, Social entrepreneur, World traveler

Cara Elizabeth Yar Khan is an entrepreneurial humanitarian and disability advocate who has had an invigorating career, spanning ten countries, so far. In 2001, Cara embarked on her international travels to work in Ecuador for two years with the United Nations World Food Programme before another two years with corporate giant Dell Panama where she managed Corporate Communications. For 10 years with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Private Sector Partnerships Cara had assignments in 7 different countries. In Haiti, Cara also took on the additional role of disability focal point during the Earthquake Emergency Recovery Operation. This role led to a successful public speaking career and agent representation with Seth Dechtman. To accompany her masters degree from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Cara is gifted in languages, fluent in Spanish, conversational in basic Mandarin Chinese and has working knowledge of French and Portuguese. Born in India and raised in Canada by a multi-ethnic family of Indian Muslim, British Anglican and Chinese Buddhist immigrants, in 2006, Cara was diagnosed with a rare muscle wasting disease, called HIBM, that leads to quadriplegia. Since then Cara has used her platform to advocate for the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities. As part of her advocacy work, Cara is producing a documentary film with the legendary award-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard and is also writing her first memoir with the Carol Mann Agency in NYC. The highlight of her career, to date, was speaking at the 2019 TED Women conference. Her TED talk, "The beautiful balance between courage and fear" has been viewed almost 2.5 million times since its release.

Building pride in the disability community and cultivating allyship in organizational cultures and society in general.

Communications, Disability Inclusion, Diversity & Inclusion, Fundraising, International Development, Marketing

I had the honor to speaking at TED Women in December 2019.