Lara Setrakian

Lara Setrakian is the Co-Founder and Executive Editor of News Deeply. She has spent more than five years as a foreign correspondent, covering the Middle East for television, radio, and digital platforms, reporting for ABC News, Bloomberg Television, The International Herald Tribune,  Business Insider, and Monocle Magazine.

Lara’s recent focus has been the fusion of news and technology; her first platform, Syria Deeply, launched in December 2012 to wide acclaim. TIME Magazine dubbed Syria Deeply “The Future of News,” while Fast Company said it “outsmarts the news business and redefines crisis coverage.” Fast Company went on to name Setrakian #20 on its list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. Following Syria Deeply’s success, Lara was invited to the White House to brief President Obama on the dynamics of the Syrian conflict and the state of the Middle East at large.

Lara was posted in the Middle East in the first wave of digital reporters for ABC News. While there she was promoted to an unprecedented role, reporting jointly for ABC News and Bloomberg Television. Lara was widely acclaimed for her groundbreaking use of social media in reporting on Iran’s 2009 election protests and the Arab Awakening of 2011. Reporting from Iran, Lara filed an exclusive report on a $3 billion collection of modern masterpieces in the basement of Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art. She was the only network reporter traveling with the US Navy’s counter-piracy task force when it caught its first band of suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden. While on that assignment, Lara was the first American to interview the president of Somalia, Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed.

Lara is currently a Fellow of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, serving at its Tow-Knight Center for Digital Journalism. She was an inaugural fellow with the Peter Jennings Program at the National Constitution Center and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. She was also dubbed one of the Top Women of 2012 by Marie Claire Magazine.

Lara is an engaging and inspirational public speaker. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.