Bangkok--5 Mar--AIT
Appointment Is Latest AIT Innovation Following Feb. 24 “Homecoming” and New Charter as an International Intergovernmental Organization
Former Ambassador of the United States of America to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Mr. Curtis S. Chin, of Alexandria, Virginia, has joined the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) as a Senior Fellow and inaugural Executive-in-Residence.
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.