Lara

Stein

Founder TEDx, Chief Innovation Officer The Future US

Lara Stein is a distinguished leader with a track record of founding, developing, and expanding global organizations at the nexus of technology, education, innovation, and sustainability. Stein offers strategic advice to financial institutions, family offices (including the Bedari Foundation and MJF), cultural organizations (such as the Qatar Museum Authority), as well as technology startups and policy groups (like Future US), guiding their overarching vision, strategic planning, and regenerative initiatives. Stein founded and was the CEO of Boma Global, a global network of local partners, offering transformational learning experience for a smart, ethical, and sustainable future. Stein sold Boma remains an advisor. Stein was the Founder and Director of TEDx. In 2007, she led the effort to bring TED to the world by developing a program that granted free licenses to third parties to organize independent TED-like events. In the first five years of TEDx, she grew the program into a global phenomenon with over 50,000 talks given at more than 8,000 TEDx events in 1,200 cities in 133 countries and over one billion views on YouTube. By Dec. 2013, eight TEDx events, on average, were being organized every day in one of 133 countries. Under Stein's leadership, TED expanded to include TEDxWomen, TED events dedicated to women’s empowerment, and the inclusion of youth audiences with the creation of TEDYouth and TEDxYouth. Stein also created the TEDx corporate event platform, and TEDx in a Box. While leading TEDx Ms. Stein simultaneously held the position of Director of the TED Prize, taking it from a $100,000 to a $1,000,000 Award and designed the team and operational infrastructure. Stein was the architect and founding community member of ReGenDAO. ReGenDAO is a fund with a soul and a first-of-its-kind platform, marketplace, and global community, to radically reimagine, reconceive, and restructure how we fund future regenerative projects and systems by leveraging bankers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and futurists. Stein also held the position of Managing Director at Singularity University where she was responsible for Singularity University's global expansion, as well as the Executive Director of Women’s March Global, the global sister organization of Women’s March, Inc. in the US. Stein previously acted as the Executive Director of MIT ReACT, an institute-wide organization at MIT dedicated to developing a global educational platform for displaced populations and refugees. Stein has also held leadership roles at Microsoft, Marvel, iXL, and WGBH. Current and previous boards: CorpsAfrica, Equality Now, Lalela, Lung Cancer Research Foundation and We Are Family Foundation, Boma Global.