Lara Chaaya

Senior Advisor, Coursera for Government, MENA

Lara Chaaya is an experienced learning and development professional with a career that spans over 15 years across the MENA region. She has been directly involved in various large-scale learning initiatives with both the private and public sectors.

Today, Lara is the Senior Government Advisor at Coursera. Her work focuses on enabling governments to transform their workforce through learning. Prior to that, Lara lived in Saudi Arabia where she worked extensively with government entities on human capability development programs that are in line with the Saudi Vision 2030. She also supported the development and implementation of transformational initiatives that use technology as an enabler for lifelong learning.

Lara's career began as a learning experience consultant and she was key to developing curricula and content across multiple subjects, both for K-12 and adult training. Her MBA thesis studied the skills gap among senior-level employees working in digital businesses in Lebanon, UAE, and Saudi Arabia