About Charbel Raji

Charbel Raji was born in Beirut, Lebanon. He received his BA/MA from Saint Joseph University in Business Management and Marketing and his Diploma of Higher Studies in Communication from Paris 2 Pantheon-Assas.

He began his career in TV broadcasting working as a Host, Reporter, Correspondent and Executive Producer for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) and some of the Middle East’s top-rated networks, while simultaneously reporting for CNN Arabic and MSNBC, on political and cultural trends throughout the region.

In 2007, Charbel pivoted to Political Affairs and Communications at the United Nations. He first served as Regional Chief of Media and Communications for UNICEF Middle East and North Africa (2008-2014) at the height of the Arab Spring. In 2014, during the civil war in Syria, he was the Political Advisor and Director of Communications for the OPCW-UN Joint Mission for the Removal of Chemical Weapons in Syria. He then became the Spokesperson and Director of Communications for the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen (2015 – 2018) where he oversaw the UN’s efforts to find a peaceful solution to Yemen’s devastating conflict with all its regional aspects.

Most recently, Charbel worked with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism and mobilized, through public and private diplomacy, more than 1200 influential figures from 100 countries, including heads of states, ministers, policy-makers, and civil society representatives to enhance cooperation between Member States, the United Nations, the African Union and other regional and international organizations on issues of violent extremism. Charbel was also the spokesperson and chief of advocacy for the UN Office for International Migration, where he worked on the now-famous “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration” that was adopted in Marrakech and served as the UN’s first global blueprint for restoring hope to the global migration crisis.

Charbel is fluent in Arabic, English, French, Italian and Spanish. He currently lives between Beirut, Italy, and New York, where he has launched CoActionPro, a boutique consulting firm and communication academy to help companies, governments agencies, organizations and politicians to scale-up their business in order to reach desired goals. Over the years, he has represented the United Nations at international conferences as a Middle East socio-political expert. He has also coached and advised senior political figures and some of Fortune 500 executives across the globe, on public governance, diplomacy and international relations.