The appointment, for an initial three-month period beginning in March
2012, is the first of its kind for AIT. Ambassador Chin will bring
added perspectives and senior experience in business, government and
civil society to campus. The move is the latest innovation at AITeven
as the institute remains focused on building a sustainable future
following the main campus’s 24 February 2012 reopening after last
year’s devastating floods in Thailand. Ambassador Chin’s appointment
also underscores a growing emphasis on innovation and public-private
partnerships in education and closely follows the coming into force of
AIT’s New Charter as an International Intergovernmental Organization on
30 January 2012 – making AIT the sole institute of higher learning in
the region to achieve this legal status.
Announcing the appointment, the AIT President Prof. Said Irandoust
said, “We are delighted to have Ambassador Chin join us at AIT. As an
experienced senior executive, strategist and public affairs and policy
specialist, who has served in senior leadership and Board positions
working with the private, not-for-profit and public sectors in Asia and
the United States, Ambassador Chin brings to our students and faculty
exciting new perspectives and insights.”
From May 2007 to October 2010, Ambassador Chin served as the 15th U.S.
Executive Director at the Asian Development Bank. Focused on poverty
reduction and economic development across the Asia and Pacific region,
Ambassador Chin was a constant voice for reforms at the region’s
leading multilateral development bank, for strengthened risk management
and human resources practices, and of a need to ensure “responsible
development – focused on people, on planet and on partnerships.” He
also spoke regularly of the importance of good governance and of the
need to remain focused on the most vulnerable, particularly in the
region’s smallest and least developed nations.
Working closely with Board and management at the ADB as well as at
with colleagues at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S.
Department of State, Ambassador Chin contributed significantly to
advancing reforms critical to strengthening development results and to
winning U.S. support for the tripling of ADB’s capital base to some
US$165 billion. He also helped foster the first ever major partnership
agreement between the ADB and UNICEF.
At AIT, Ambassador Chin will be anchored in the Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) Asia Center at AIT, and will work closely with the
AIT President and his management team in helping spearhead advocacy,
outreach and engagement efforts to rebuild AIT in light of the recent
floods. Ambassador Chin also will provide advice and guidance to the
Yunus Center at AIT – collaboration between Nobel Laureate Professor
Muhammad Yunus and the Asian Institute of Technology focused on
development, poverty reduction and social business and entrepreneurship
– to AIT Consulting and to AITExtension. He also will serve as an added
resource, guest lecturing on such issues as corporate responsibility
and stakeholder engagement.
Reacting to his appointment, Ambassador Chin noted that AIT, like the
Asian Development Bank, has had a long history and wide-ranging impact
in the Asia and Pacific region. “AIT stands for principles of
sustainable education, development and outreach, and continues to
contribute to a stronger and more sustainable Asia and Pacific region
through innovations and critical investments in educating the people
who will be the region’s next leaders in business, government and civil
society,” Ambassador Chin said. “I am proud to be associated with AIT
and to contribute to its continued growth in line with the changing
needs of the region.
“With the world ever more interconnected, partnerships and exchanges
between nations – and the public, private and non-profit sectors within
and across borders – will be increasingly critical, and a changing AIT
reflects and builds on this,” Ambassador Chin said. “We are seeing
growing partnerships across the Pacific and within the region, and
education is a key part of this.”
Prior to his confirmation by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Executive
Director at the ADB, with the rank of ambassador, and his move to
Manila, Philippines, Ambassador Chin was a managing director with
global public affairs giant Burson-Marsteller – a part of Young and
Rubicam Brands, a subsidiary of WPP (NASDAQ: WPPGY), one of the world’s
leading communications services networks – in Beijing, Hong Kong, New
York, Tokyo and Washington, D.C. Over the course of 20 years, he served
as a counselor to governments and business, including multinational
food and beverage, consumer goods and services, energy and
infrastructure, finance, and telecom and technology companies, among
others in often highly regulated sectors.
Ambassador Chin has served various capacities in four U.S.
Presidential Administrations, including as special assistant to U.S.
Commerce Secretary Barbara Hackman Franklin and as a member of the U.S.
Department of State’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy, under
both U.S. Secretaries of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
While on that committee, he helped originate the U.S. Department of
State's Benjamin Franklin Awards for Public Diplomacy. As the son of a
career U.S. military officer and a registered nurse, Ambassador Chin
spent his youth in Bangkok, Seoul, Taipei and the U.S. states of
Arizona, Maryland and Virginia.
Ambassador Chin currently advises a range of non-profit organizations
and emerging ventures on Board development and start-up issues. He is
founding managing director of RiverPeak Group, LLC; a member of the
Board of Trustees of CFSI Community and Family Services International,
a leading Asia-based humanitarian organization; a member of the
international advisory board of the New York City-based Battery Dance
Company, a leader in international exchange programs in contemporary
dance; a former board member of the Asian American Federation (of New
York), a pan-Asian organization focused on improving the civic voice
and well-being of Asians and Asian Americans; and a former
international advisory board member of Ma-Yi Theater Company, a New
York City cultural organization dedicated to developing and producing
new work by today's most exciting and innovative Asian-American
artists.