Sara Anjargolian Appointed Diaspora Affairs Chief of Staff

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a decree on Wednesday appointing the co-founder and chief executive of Yerevan’s Impact Hub and a long-ago repatriate to Armenia Sara Anjargolian to serve as the chief of staff of the newly-established High Commission of Diaspora Affairs.

The news comes on the heels of Pashinyan’s appointment Friday of former Glendale Mayor Zareh Sinanyan to serve as Armenia’s High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs.

“I am grateful to be witnessing a time in the history of our nation, where someone like me, who was born and raised outside of Armenia, would be asked to join the leadership of our homeland,” Anjargolian said in a Facebook post after her appointment

“Together with the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs Zareh Sinanyan, I am proud to serve the Republic of Armenia and the global Armenian Diaspora,” added Anjargolian.

In 2014, Anjargolian co-founded the Impact Hub Yerevan and served as its chief executive while serving on the Impact Hub Global Association board. The international organization bills itself as “a member-based network of changemakers. Part innovation lab, part business incubator, and part community center, we offer our members a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration, and collaboration to grow impact.”

Through Impact Hub Yerevan, Anjargolian has focused on empowering Armenians to advance social impact projects that have had a lasting effect on life in Armenia.

Anjargolian was born in London and grew up in Los Angeles. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in Political Science/Public Policy and received a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. During her legal career she served as a trial lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice, Associate Professor/Assistant Dean at the American University of Armenia Law Department and policy advisor to the Los Angeles City Attorney.
She has combined her background as an attorney and multimedia journalist to focus on visual storytelling projects that seek to inspire social change.

Her work has been recognized and supported by among others, the United Nations, Fulbright, UCLA School of Art & Architecture, the Tufenkian Foundation, and the Yerevan Press Association.

Her body of work has been exhibited widely and most recently included stories such as: non-combat deaths in Armenia’s military; life on the front lines in Artsakh; refugee life along the Azerbaijani border; HIV/TB among the Zulu people in South Africa; “How We Live,” a photography installation; book and film documenting poverty in Armenia; and “Not Here,” a project focusing on labor migration from Armenia to Los Angeles.