Young Entrepeneurial Council

Soraya Darabi leads Marketing and Parnterships for location-based mobile application Foodspotting, which was named a TIME Top 50 Website and an “App of the Year” by WIRED magazine and Apple in 2010, and one of "America's Most Promising Startups" by BusinessWeek in 2011.

She regularly reports on digital media for ABC News, and provides the network with research and insight that helps guide their community and social media strategy. In 2011, Soraya became the first digital ambassador to The United Nation's technology group "Global Pulse."

Previously, Soraya served as Product Lead at drop.io, a real-time online sharing and collaboration service recently acquired by Facebook. She began her career as Manager of Digital Partnerships and Social-Media at The New York Times, where she successfully led the drive to syndicate nytimes.com news and video across multiple new media platforms.

In June 2011 Soraya and her co-founders of Foodspotting appeared in the Inc. magazine "30 Under 30" issue. In June 2010, Fast Company featured Soraya on the cover of its annual “Most Creative People in Business” issue; in October 2010 she appeared on the cover of Brandweek's annual "Digital" issue. In 2009, her New York Times multimedia Inauguration Day campaign on Facebook won first prize at the INMA awards for excellence in marketing. Soraya was been named one of AdAge magazine’s “25 People in Media to Follow on Twitter."

Soraya sits on digital advisory boards, most recently joining 'Tech Stars' as a mentor in New York City and Carnegie Hall as part of the 'Notables' committee. She also works with nonprofit causes, including Charity: Water, The Robin Hood Foundation and Goods4Good.org on digital initiatives.

Soraya earned her B.A. in English Literature at Georgetown University and now lives in Gramercy Park, Manhattan.