Yara Asad is a Senior Private Sector Development Consultant with the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Private Sector for Refugees Project (PS4R). Yara has four years of experience working with the WBG, primarily on Private Sector Development - B2B and Matchmaking, focusing on vulnerable groups of refugees, migrants and women. Prior to that Yara served as the Project Manager and Research Lead at Building Markets-focusing on building the supply chain for Small and Medium size businesses (SMEs) in crisis affected countries. Between 2015-2017, Yara worked as a Lead Middle East and North Africa Researcher and Policy Analyst at Wolfensohn and Company under a project on the MENA 2050. Previously, she was the Director General for the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Palestine from January 2011- December 2014, a venture through which she focused on promoting regional and international trade relations. Parallel to that, Yara was the Chief Executive Officer of the Jerusalem Arbitration Centre. An initiative that aims to create a mechanism for Palestinian and Israeli businesses to resolve commercial disputes via arbitration.

Yara holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is an Edward Mason Fellow of Public Policy. Her first publication at Ivey School was in January 2011, and focused on international marketing.