She is the CEO and Executive Editor of News Deeply, a digital media company that builds single-topic platforms that provide journalistic reporting, expert analysis, dialogues and opportunities for knowledge exchange on the issues they cover.

[7] A graduate of Harvard University, Setrakian is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum[8] and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2012, Setrakian founded Syria Deeply, a platform covering the war in Syria, addressing a gap in in-depth media coverage of conflict zones and serving an underserved niche audience that was “thirsty to understand more.”[19] Receiving positive responses and great interest in single-issue sites, Setrakian launched a second platform, Ebola Deeply (archived),[20] addressing the West African Ebola virus epidemic.

Since then more platforms covering geopolitical, health and environmental issues have been added to the News Deeply network, which has been called a “new model of impact journalism”.

[21] As a fellow of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2014, Setrakian authored a landmark paper on vertical, or single-subject news sites a rising trend in digital publishing.

[22] In her TED talk in January 2017, Setrakian made the case that some of the ideas she founded News Deeply on were relevant for the crisis-ridden news industry, describing journalism as “adult education” and advocating for embracing complexity “in order to make sense of a complex world.”[23] In an opinion piece for the Washington Post Setrakian spoke out on allegations of sexual harassment against political journalist Mark Halperin.

Letting go of colleagues when that happens is the hardest part of my job as a CEO.” [27] In December 2018 she joined with a group of women journalists to create Press Forward, an initiative to change the culture of newsrooms at the local and national level, so that they are safe and fair for all reporters.

[37] She headlined Middle East coverage for Bloomberg during the Arab Spring, and covered its aftermath including the latest ramifications in Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain.

[40] Lara was a contributor to Foreign Policy's blog: Mideast Channel with articles on Lebanon, the impact of media on the Arab Spring and the economics of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.