ADVISOR | DEMOCRACY ACTIVIST | SPEAKER

Tackling the intersection of ethics, tech, and democracy.

 

Yaël works at the intersection of tech, democracy, and policy, as a Future of Democracy Fellow at Berggruen Institute and a policy advisor to start ups, governments and investors looking to align technology to better serve the public. She focuses on what the public square and open, democratic debate look like in the digital world and how we can change the current incentives to reconcile social media’s dominance of these public spaces with democratic principles. She strives to bridge the divide between government and tech, to help foster a healthier information ecosystem.

 

She has spent 20 years working around the globe on democracy and security issues as a CIA officer, a White House advisor, the Global Head of Elections Integrity Operations for political advertising at Facebook, a diplomat, and the head of a global risk firm. She was a Researcher-in-Residence at Betalab in 2020-21 and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell Tech's Digital Life Initiative in 2019-2020, where she focused on technology's effects on discourse and democracy and taught a multi-university course on Tech, Media and Democracy. 

 

Yaël has become a key voice and public advocate for transparency and accountability in tech, particularly where real-world-consequences affect democracy and societies around the world. Her recent TED talk addresses these issues and proposes ideas for how government and society should hold the companies accountable.

 

Yaël travels internationally as a keynote speaker at any number of venues seeking informed, inspirational women to help make sense of our world's most difficult challenges. She can be booked through the Lavin Agency. 

 

Yaël was named to Forbes' 2017 list of “40 Women to Watch Over 40”. She is also an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she provides context and analysis on social media, elections integrity, political and foreign affairs in the media. She has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Brookings Techstream, TIME, WIRED, Quartz and The Huffington Post, has appeared on CNN, BBC World News, CBS Sunday Morning, Bloomberg News, CBS News, PBS and C-SPAN, in policy forums, and on a number of podcasts. She earned an M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

 

Photo: On stage at Tech Open Air Berlin, 2017