Biography
Maya Akra was born in Achrafieh Beirut. She lived her first 11 years between Canada (Saint Laurent and Lavale) and North Lebanon (Amioun and Daher El Ein), then moved in the early 2000s to Beirut (Bet El Chaar), where most or her father's relatives are based. The family thought of the move as looking for a better future for Maya and her sister, Maude, by being closer to their cousins and loved ones. In 2003, Maya lost her only sister due to suicide, which really shaped Maya's character a lot. Maya's adolescent years were not typical at all. In the years preceding her sister's death, she lost her uncle to murder (following the assassination of Hariri), her cousin to a major car accident, and her grandma (all within a period of 4 years).
In 2008, Maya graduated from High School with a Baccalaureate degree in Economics and Sociology with the highest grade between her classmates in the government official exams. Some of the highlights of her school years were getting a diplomacy award in Model United Nations in 2008 and acting as a main actress in two main plays that won awards in UNESCO. In those plays, Maya was the "butterfly" and a "male-crook". In fact, out of over 18 boys in her class, Maya got the audition of acting as a male-crook, and performed the character in front of whole whole school, at UNESCO, and in church. In addition, to her diplomacy award and acting background, Maya was crowned "Miss Heptathlon" in 2009 which is a Sports Competition among high school students - where the students competed in long races, fast races, long jumps, high jumps, abs, push ups, and other stamina and endurance competitions.
In 2013, Maya graduated from Notre Dame University and got a Bachelor's degree in Advertising and Marketing. Following her graduation in October 2013, she got a month-internship in Impact BBDO, Beirut Lebanon. In November 2013, she got a job at NRJ Lebanon as a marketing representative for Nrj hits TV, a new music TV channel that had recently launched in the Middle East. Soon, Maya handled the social media platforms for Nrj hits TV, NRJ Lebanon 99.1 FM, and Nostalgie Liban. When she handled NRJ Lebanon they were at 100,000 followers, she grew their page exponentially to 1.2 million followers. She also started and monitored an ambassadors; program featuring different school and university brand ambassadors for NRJ. She wrote radio shows, finalized radio sponsorship and barter deals, conducted roadshows, handled huge event backstage Meet and Greets, and handled full-fledged event operations like Movie Avant Premieres and NRJ Extravadance nights.
In 2016, Maya left her job due to a severe back injury where she did not want any desk job anymore and instead decided to open her own agency "Social Mode" where she handles the PR, Marketing, and advertising of different clients. Some of her clients were/are Directors' Kcut (by the well-established well-known director Kamil Tanios), Comedian and actor Mario Bassil and Comedy Night, Comedian and actor Michel Abou Sleiman, Arabs Got Talent winner choreographer Nadim Cherfan, EVA Zoughaib the Makeup Artist, LAB Academy Beauty academy, Bayt Jameela, El Coronel pub, Kokens Cloud Kitchen, ENEV Travel agency, and others.. Her agency sponsored Startup Weekend Beirut 2016, and BDL Accelerate 2016.
In 2018, Maya in partnership with Klangoo started "Startups on the Spot", a show featuring startup founders of Arabic origin. She presented it and created the content. She interviewed over 25 startups between Lebanon, Jordan, and the MENA region and attended/ covered more than 15 tech events.
In 2020, Maya traveled to Jordan to star in "Hona El Ared" show on Shahid TV, and then found herself stuck in Amman for months due to the pandemic restrictions. During this year, she gained a lot of recognition in the Jordanian media and appeared on both Amman TV, Roya TV, and acted with the most followed comedian in Jordan, Imad Farajin. She was also interviewed on Radio 99.6 FM which is the number one English speaking radio station in Amman.
In November 2020, Maya joined Wunderman, Amman, as a content creator where she created, briefed, and directed a lot of campaigns, videos, ideas, and advertising concepts to the agency - reporting directly to the creative director.
After taking a workshop in Acting for Film at New York Film Academy in 2019, Maya knew she will come back to the city of her dreams New York. In July 2021, Maya decided to celebrate her 30th birthday in Lebanon with her childhood friends so she went back to Lebanon from Amman for four months before she embarks on a new journey in the United States of America. In January 2022, and out of a lot of applicants, Maya won the "Empower the Artist" scholarship at The American Arts, Filts, and Television Academy where she is learning how to empower herself to create more!
Maya appeared numerous times on prominent TV shows in Lebanon and Jordan, and acted in over 30 TVCs in the MENA region. She also has over 210k followers on Tiktok, 87k followers on Facebook, and over 50k followers on Instagram. She has starred in viral videos with HowAboutBeirut, Bahij Kadoura, and got featured on many press publications like StepFeed, DialyMail.Uk, DubaiPrNetwork, and others.
Maya performed a stand up comedy show on Hayda 7akeh, a late night show on MTV Lebanon presented by Adel Karam. She also performed stand up on Comedy Central Arabia on OSN, in Dubai. She was a guest comedian on the shows: Najm El Comedia, Caramel, Ktir Salbeh Show, and Erbit Ten7al. She was the lead actress in the following TVCS: Gandour, Snips Baked Chips, Downy, Life Buoy, Puck, Arla's Milk, Goody, Arthliflex, FEM, Mcdonald's, KFC, Nescafe, Middle East Airlines, Bank Audi, and many others.
