Khara Boender
Senior Manager, State Policy
Data Center Coalition
Khara Boender is senior manager, state policy at the Data Center Coalition (DCC). Khara brings over a decade of experience working on a variety of state policy issues. Prior to joining DCC, Khara served as state policy director at the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), where she oversaw CCIA’s engagement with policymakers across the 50 states on legislation and regulations related to antitrust reform, consumer data privacy, content moderation, online safety, artificial intelligence, and digital taxes. In this capacity, Khara provided written and verbal testimony before state legislatures, produced advocacy materials, and analyzed and commented on key legislative trends, serving as a voice for the technology industry.
Khara also previously served as a policy and research analyst at The Pew Charitable Trusts, on a team that worked with state legislators to adopt processes to evaluate the economic impact of their state tax incentives and, once processes were established, tying those evaluation findings to evidence-based policy changes. Working in partnership with the National Conference of State Legislatures, Khara led a network of tax incentive evaluation analysts to foster peer connections and build shared technical capacity. Earlier in her career, Khara worked at Stateside Associates, a state and local government affairs firm, supporting efforts to identify and track relevant legislation for clients.
Khara has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Loyola University Maryland.