Dr. Desai is the President and CEO of Asia Society, a leading global organization committed to strengthening partnerships among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. Founded by John D. Rockefeller 3rd in 1956, Asia Society is the premier organization with a unique focus on three-dimensional engagement — combining culture, commerce, and current affairs — with more than 35 countries in Asia. Appointed President in 2004, Dr. Desai sets the direction for the Society’s diverse sets of programs ranging from major U.S.-Asia policy initiatives and national educational partnerships for global learning to path-breaking art exhibitions and innovative Asian American performances.

Dr. Desai is a frequent speaker at national and international forums on a wide variety of subjects that include US-Asia relationships, cultural roots of Asian economic development, regional connections within the Asia Pacific region, as well as the arts and cultures of Asia and Asian America. She has authored many opinion pieces that have appeared in over 50 publications around the world. As a scholar of Asian art, Dr. Desai has published and edited several books and numerous articles on traditional and contemporary art. She has an international reputation for introducing contemporary Asian art in the U.S. through critically acclaimed exhibitions and scholarly catalogues. Under her leadership, Asia Society has expanded the scope and scale of its activities, including opening of new offices in India and Korea, the inauguration of a new center on US-China relations, and the development of new initiatives focusing on the environment, on Asian women leaders and on partnerships among the next generation of exceptional leaders in Asia and the United States.

Prior to assuming her current position as President, Dr. Desai held several positions at Asia Society, first as Director of its Museum, and then as Vice President for Arts and Cultural Programs and as Senior Vice President of the Society. Before joining Asia Society in 1990, Dr. Desai was a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the head of Public Programs and Academic Affairs. She has also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston University, Columbia University and Williams College.

Dr. Desai holds a B.A. in political Science from Bombay University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian Art History from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous international and national grants and fellowships, Dr. Desai has received honorary degrees from Susquehanna University, College of Staten Island, and Centre College. For her work on Asian American issues, she has received awards from the University of Massachusetts, City University of New York, and Asian Americans for Equality. For her leadership in the arts, she has been honored by ArtTable, a national organization of women leaders in the arts, and has received a Gold Medal from the National Institute of Social Sciences. Dr. Desai was selected by Crain's New York as one of the "100 most powerful women leaders" in New York, by India Abroad, the leading national weekly for Indian Americans, as one the “50 most distinguished Indian Americans,” and was honored by Zee T.V. (India) as the outstanding International Woman of the Year.

Dr. Desai serves on the boards of The Brookings Institution, Citizens Committee for New York City, Bertelsmann Foundation (USA), Asian University for Women and the New York City Mayor's Advisory Commission for Cultural Affairs. She has also been appointed to the international Advisory Committee for the House of World Cultures, Berlin, and the Fondazione Intercultura, Italy. She served as the President of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) in 1998-99, and was on the Board from 1995-2000. She has also served on the Boards of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics), the South Asian Council of the Association of Asian Studies, the College Art Association, ArtTable, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.

Dr. Desai is married to Robert B. Oxnam, a China scholar, who was Asia Society's President from 1981-1992.

Dr. Melissa Chiu is Director of the Asia Society Museum in New York and Vice President of the Society's Global Arts Programming. She was appointed director in 2004 after serving for three years as the Museum's first curator of contemporary Asian and Asian American art. As a leading authority on Asian contemporary art, she has initiated a number of major initiatives at the Asia Society Museum, including the launch of a contemporary art collection to complement the museum's outstanding Rockefeller Collection of traditional Asian art.

Chiu, who is a frequent lecturer and commentator in the news media, is a visiting professor at the CUNY Graduate School. She has spoken at numerous American universities, including Harvard University. She was a Getty Research Fellow (2003-2004) and has served on grant and policy advisory committees for: the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Chiu is a member of the Academic Advisory Board, Asia Art Archives, Hong Kong; Advisory Board, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Vancouver; Advisor for Art 21, an art television series broadcast on PBS; Board Member, Vietnam Foundation for the Arts; and is a founding member of the Asian Contemporary Art Consortium in New York, a group serving the interests of Asian art and culture at the world's leading museums and galleries. She is an active member of the American Association of Art Museum Directors.

She has served as an Editor for Asian contemporary art, The Grove Dictionary of Art, published by Oxford University Press, London and New York, and is the author and editor of many books, monographs, and anthologies, among them books on the Chinese contemporary artist Zhang Huan and a co-authored work on the art of the Cultural Revolution published by Yale University Press in 2008. Her most recent scholarly book, Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China (Charta, 2007), focuses on the international Chinese artistic diaspora.

Prior to joining Asia Society, Chiu was Founding Director of the Asia-Australia Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia (1996–2001). She earned her Ph.D in Art History and M.A. in Arts Administration in her native Australia.

As the Vice President of Global Policy Programs, Suzanne DiMaggio oversees Asia Society’s task forces, working groups, and Track II initiatives aimed at promoting effective policy responses to the most critical challenges facing the United States and Asia.

She is currently leading projects focused on US-Iran relations, regional security in South Asia, Burma/Myanmar, and sustainability issues in Asia, including food and water security.

Prior to joining Asia Society in 2007, Ms. DiMaggio served as the Vice President of Global Policy Programs at the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), where she directed programs aimed at advancing multilateral approaches to global problem solving and encouraging constructive US international engagement. She also led UNA-USA's Track II dialogues with partners in the Middle East and Asia on a range of issues, including regional security, terrorism, nonproliferation, multilateral peace operations, and global environmental governance. From 2002 to 2007, she directed a US-Iran policy dialogue, which served as one of the few bridges facilitating sustained, face-to-face discussions between Americans and Iranians.

Prior to joining UNA-USA in 1998, Ms. DiMaggio was a Program Officer at the United Nations University (UNU), a research institute that links the UN system with international academic and policy communities. First based in Tokyo, Japan, and later at UN headquarters in New York, she focused on international security issues and sustainable development.

From 2000 to 2007, Ms. DiMaggio was an Adjunct Professor at the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. She holds a B.A. from New York University and an M.A. in international relations from The City College of New York (CUNY). She is a frequent commentator in the news media, and her op-eds have appeared in national and international press.

Ms. DiMaggio resides in NYC's Greenwich Village with her husband, jazz bassist and composer Ben Allison, and their daughter.

Shayne Doty is Vice President for External Affairs at Asia Society, where he is responsible for fundraising for the New York headquarters, and for coordination of fundraising efforts globally.

He joined Asia Society in April of 2010, after six years as Director of Advancement and External Relations at Washington National Opera. During that time he broadened the Board of Trustees, negotiated several million-dollar gifts including support from Asia, created an industry night at the opera for the private equity community, handled relations with the diplomatic community, and shaped many of the galas for which WNO is known.

His past experience includes working as Senior Major Gifts Officer at The Metropolitan Opera, where he assisted the President of the Board of Trustees, working with the Fulbright International Center at the University of Maryland, and previous development work at Duke University.

Mr. Doty's background includes work as a professional concert organist with recitals at locations such as the Basilica Saint-Denis in France, St. Paul's Bloor Street in Canada, and in New York at venues such as St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, and St. Paul's Chapel of Trinity Church. He is a high school graduate and Kenan Scholar of the North Carolina School of the Arts, a Mary Duke Biddle Scholar and graduate of Duke University, and holds a diploma from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. He is a board member of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, the French-American Cultural Foundation and a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Anthony Jackson is Vice President for Education at Asia Society. He also leads Asia Society's Partnership for Global Learning (PGL), a national membership network of practitioners and policymakers dedicated to integrating knowledge about Asia and the world as a mainstay of American education. Over the past six years, he has led the development of Asia Society's International Studies Schools Network, an effort within the PGL to create a network of small, effective, internationally-themed secondary schools across the country.

Before joining Asia Society, he was a Director of the Walt Disney Company's Disney Learning Partnership, where he designed and oversaw the Creative Learning Communities network of reforming elementary schools. Dr. Jackson, trained in both developmental psychology and education, is one of the nation’s leading experts on secondary school reform and adolescent development.

After a stint on Capitol Hill as a Congressional Science Fellow he became a senior staff member on the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, chaired by George Miller (D-CA). Dr. Jackson later directed the Carnegie Corporation Task Force on the Education of Young Adolescents that produced the seminal Turning Points report, which became a key blueprint for the reform of thousands of middle schools nationwide.

While at Carnegie Corporation he created and directed the Turning Points network of over 250 middle schools that operated in 15 states, as well as in Los Angeles and New York City. He also co-authored the follow-up blueprint Turning Points 2000, which transformed many of the design principles in the original report into concrete action steps for new and reconstituted secondary schools. Many urban districts are now using Turning Points 2000 to guide secondary school reform initiatives.

In 2004, Teachers College Press published the latest book Dr. Jackson co-authored, entitled Making the Most of Middle School: A Field Guide for Parents and Others. While at Carnegie, Dr. Jackson also directed an inter-group relations program and research network that led to the design of model inter-cultural school and community programs.

Don Nagle joined the Asia Society in July 2007 as Chief Financial Officer. In May 2009 his responsibilities were expanded to include administrative oversight of the Society, including its Centers in Asia and the US, its Human Resources, IT, and planning functions, and the running of the organization's headquarters building in New York City. Additionally, he is responsible for managing the institution's financial affairs, including accounting, budgeting, forecasting, and controls.

Prior to joining Asia Society, Mr. Nagle spent most of his career at Kraft Foods, leading the financial organization for several of its businesses. During his nearly three decades with the company, he developed extensive operating experience managing financial organizations through significant business change. Over the years, Mr. Nagle has augmented his corporate experience with service on severalboards, including an inner city social services agency, where he focused on improving financial infrastructure and resources. He began his career in the mid-1970s with AFS-USA, the international student exchange organization.

Mr. Nagle earned an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and holds a BA from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in Economics and International Relations.

Geoff Spencer is Vice President for Communications and Marketing at Asia Society, where he oversees the organization's online, public relations, and marketing departments serving audiences around the world.

Mr. Spencer has more than 25 years of experience as an Asia-based journalist and news manager for the US and international media, serving most recently as Editor-in-Chief for Southeast Asia at MSN, Microsoft's portal network, responsible for five websites across the region. He was Online Chief of Staff at the Sydney Morning Herald, spearheading the paper's move toward a digital future. A veteran newsman, Geoff worked for 13 years at the Associated Press, where he was Asia Editor in charge of news coverage in more than 20 countries. Before that, he was AP's bureau chief in Jakarta, where he covered the fall of Suharto and East Timor's tumultuous independence referendum. AP also sent him to Pakistan and Afghanistan after 9/11 to cover the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the mountains around Tora Bora. He has worked as a reporter in the Middle East, the South Pacific islands, and in his native Australia.