San Francisco, February 26, 2013 — The Asia Foundation, a nonprofit international development organization committed to improving lives across a dynamic and developing Asia, announces the election of six new members to its Board of Trustees: John Foster, Hong Seok-Hyun, Timothy Kochis, Chong-Moon Lee, Clare Lockhart, and Adil Najam. The Foundation made the announcement at a recent Board of Trustees meeting where six outgoing Trustees who have completed their terms of service—Dave Andrews, Will Chang, Scott Cook, Lee Hong-Koo, Surin Pitsuwan, and Paul Slawson—were honored with a special dinner with Presidents Emeriti William P. Fuller and Douglas Bereuter in attendance.
The Asia Foundation President David D. Arnold shared his gratitude to the outgoing Trustees for their long, distinguished, and dedicated service to the Foundation, and welcomed the six new members: “This impressive new group of Trustees represents a diverse set of backgrounds, expertise, and experiences that will inform and contribute to the overall work of the Foundation.”
Mr. John Foster – John Foster is chairman and managing director of Healthpoint Capital, a private equity firm focused on the orthopedic and dental device businesses. He is a 37-year veteran of private equity investing. Mr. Foster founded Foster Management Company in 1972, which managed seven private equity funds. Currently, Mr. Foster is chairman of DTI Dental Technologies, Inc. and a member of the Board of Directors of Alphatec Spine, Inc. and BioHorizons, Inc. He has served as a trustee of the Asia Society, Asian Cultural Council, Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, and the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and was a former member of the Board of Directors of Avon Inc. and Corning Inc. He received a BA from Williams College and an MBA from Amos Tuck School, Dartmouth.
Dr. Hong Seok-Hyun – Dr. Seok-Hyun Hong is the chairman and CEO of the JoongAng Media Network, the largest media group in Korea. He took over the management of the JoongAng Ilbo as CEO and publisher in 1994. He served as president of the World Association of Newspapers from 2002 to 2005, and also as president of the Korea Association of Newspapers from 2003 to 2005. He served as the Korean Ambassador to the United States in 2005. Early in his career, Dr. Hong joined the World Bank in 1977 as an expert in developmental economics, with assignments primarily in Turkey and Malaysia, and remained there for six years until he returned to Korea in the early 1980s. Upon his return, he joined the Korean government in 1983, first as chief assistant to the minister of finance and then as principal assistant to the chief of staff of the President. He then joined the Korea Development Institute. He also worked for the Samsung Corning Company from 1986 to 1994 as senior executive vice president. He also served as the first chairman of the newly launched English-Speaking Union Korea in 2004. He also holds the following titles: deputy chairman of Asia Pacific Group of the Trilateral Commission; member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Asia Foundation/Korea; and president of the organizing committee of the World Culture Open (WCO). Dr. Hong received a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from Seoul National University, and earned his master’s in industrial engineering and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.
Mr. Timothy Kochis – Tim Kochis is the former CEO and Chairman of Aspiriant and has 40 years of experience in personal financial and investment planning. He has been active throughout his career to set standards for the profession and currently serves as a trustee of the Financial Planning Standards Board and as a trustee of the Charles Schwab Investment Management ETF Board. Mr. Kochis has been included in Worth magazine’s list of the country’s Best Financial Advisors each year since the list was first published in 1994 and ranked number one in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. He earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, his JD from the University of Michigan, and his undergraduate degree from Marquette University. Kochis served in the US Army, which included a tour of duty in Vietnam, where he received a Purple Heart for wounds received in action. Mr. Kochis’ other civic engagements include: Board of Directors of YMCA of San Francisco; Board of Directors of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (Chair of the Investment Committee); and Board of Trustees of the University of San Francisco.
Dr. Chong-Moon Lee – Dr. Chong-Moon Lee founded Diamond Multimedia Systems in 1982, which later achieved the No. 1 ranking in market share for PC graphics accelerator products in America. In 1996, he started another high technology venture company under the name of AmBex Venture Group. A native of South Korea, Lee has a diverse background involving not only business, but education, cultural as well as athletic activities. Dr. Lee served on the Board of Trustees at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. Currently, Dr. Lee serves as a trustee and commissioner of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, which is also known as Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Arts and Culture, a trustee of Asia Society, among many others. He is also a founding board member of The Tech Museum of Innovation of San Jose. He served as Consulting Professor at Stanford University’s Asia Pacific Research Center, and currently serves as Chaired Professor Emeritus at Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST). He has co-authored “Silicon Valley Edge” published by Stanford University Press. Dr. Lee also has been an active philanthropist in the local, national as well as international levels through The Chong-Moon Lee Foundation. He holds honorary doctorate degrees from the several leading universities including Seton Hall University and KAIST, an MS from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and a law degree from Chung-Ang University, Seoul.
Ms. Clare Lockhart – Clare Lockhart is co-founder and Director of the Institute for State Effectiveness, where she works on issues across state, market and civil society in a range of countries. She has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. Between 2001 and 2005, she with the United Nations on the Bonn Agreement in Afghanistan and advised the Government of Afghanistan during the Transitional Administration. While in Afghanistan, she and a number of colleagues began to codify this learning and advising high-level policy-makers in other transitional states. Previously, she managed a World Bank program on institutional and organizational analysis. She was educated at Oxford, Harvard and the Inns of Court School of Law and is a member of the Bar of England and Wales. She is the author of a number of papers and toolkits on state-building and development, including the book Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World.
Dr. Adil Najam – Dr. Adil Najam is the Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and a globally recognized authority on international environment and development policy. He has served as the Frederick S. Pardee Professor of Global Public Policy and the Director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University (2007-11) and prior to that as Associate Professor of International Negotiation and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (2002-07). He is a past winner of MIT’s Goodwin Medal for Effective Teaching, the Fletcher School Paddock Teaching Award, the Stein Rokan Award of the International Political Science Association, and was awarded one of Pakistan’s highest civil awards, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence). He was amongst the authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessments, work for which the scientific panel was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Najam is a Trustee of WWF-International, serves on the Governing Council of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and was nominated by the United Nations Secretary General to serve on the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP). He has published over a hundred academic papers and book chapters, was the founding editor of the award-winning blog ‘All Things Pakistan’ (Pakistaniat.com), and his recent books include: South Asia 2060 (2013); The Future of South-South Economic Relations (2012); Pakistanis in America: Portrait of a Giving Community (2006); Environment, Development and Human Security: Perspectives from South Asia (2003); and Civic Entrepreneurship (2002). Dr. Najam holds two Masters Degrees and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).