Raised in Calgary, Canada in a Persian refugee immigrant family, Sara Agah Franti grew up in a home that was steeped in a rich cultural heritage of hospitality, connection, hard work and giving back to the world. It’s from those deeply rooted values that she embarked on a ten year career as an emergency nurse, where she learned to bring light to people when they were at their most vulnerable moments, including work in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. She acquired her masters in Public Health, while starting her own entrepreneurial journey with her jewelry company Sara Lua designs. In 2013 she founded the non profit, Do It For The Love with Michael Franti, bringing over 12,000 people with advanced stages of life threatening illnesses to live concerts around the world the past decade.
Much of this internal passion to care for others came from her upbringing in a Persian household where no guest ever entered without being offered tea, food, laughter, backgammon, music or left without a full belly and smile on their face.
In 2020 Sara accepted the role of Director of Strategy and Marketing for Soulshine Bali at a time when the pandemic had decimated the economy of Bali which is dependent on tourists who were no longer allowed to enter the island. Her commitment was to keep Soulshine’s staff employed and their morale high throughout this time while most other hotels in the area were forced to lay off their teams and went dormant. Many of our team members were the sole income earners in multi generational households and it was an incredibly difficult time for all of them.
Through this role, she was able to use her marketing and leadership abilities to get Soulshine and our team through a perilous period and get the new wing of the hotel opened in 2023 more than doubling our size and taking our team from 48 to nearly 100 employees.
In July of 2022 she assumed the role of CEO co-leading a new expansion to life and in 2023, Soulshine opened ‘Stay Human’, a farm to table restaurant and pool club (complete with adult waterslide), ‘Togetherness’, a music, food and beverage lounge dedicated to human connection and the Panorama suites, 17 tropical modern luxury rooms which boast a turntable and record collection and the best views in the Ubud area.
