Chairman & Co-Founder, Global Youth Empowerment Movement
Ruba Al Hassan is a social entrepreneur & human development expert.
She is Chairman and co-founder of the Global Youth Empowerment Movement (GYEM) in Dubai, a social enterprise that empowers youth through a transformational program of self-discovery and social entrepreneurship training to help turn their passion into social action. Al Hassan founded the first human trafficking shelter in the Middle East focused specifically on rehabilitation of sexually exploited victims and successfully lobbied for the first anti-human trafficking law in the region. Al Hassan serves as the Senior Advisor to the UAE Ambassador to the USA on education and human rights and was formerly the Social Policy Advisor of the Abu Dhabi Government working on education and welfare reform. Prior to Al Hassan’s extensive career in the public sector, she managed the human development programmes at UNDP. Al Hassan holds an MSc in Development Studies from SOAS and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.