Members Reception with Asia Society President Josette Sheeran
VIEW EVENT DETAILSMembers reception with Josette Sheeran, President & CEO, Asia Society
Drinks reception: 6:30 pm
Remarks: 7:00 pm
Close: 8:00 pm
Josette Sheeran is the seventh President and CEO of Asia Society. In the position, which she assumed in June 2013, she is responsible for leading and advancing the organization's work throughout the U.S. and Asia, and across its disciplines of arts and culture, policy and business, and education. Ms. Sheeran is former Vice Chair of the World Economic Forum, which hosts the annual Davos and Davos in China gathering of world leaders. She recently served at the Harvard Kennedy School as a Fisher Fellow in the Future of Diplomacy. Prior to her tenure at the World Economic Forum, Ms. Sheeran was executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006. There she was responsible for managing the world's largest humanitarian organization, leading a team of 13,000 people in more than 70 countries, and managing an annual budget of more than $3 billion.
Ms. Sheeran has held senior positions in the U.S. government, and in those positions she conducted high-level diplomacy with virtually every nation in Asia, including as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs and Deputy U.S. trade representative. Named by Forbes as the world's 30th most powerful woman in 2011, Ms. Sheeran is also a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. She has received several honors for her leadership in the fight against hunger and malnutrition including recipient of Japan's Nigata International Food Award; named Commandeur de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole by the government of France; and received Brazil's highest civilian award, the Grand Official Order of the "Rio Branco." Ms. Sheeran twice served as a Pulitzer Juror. She was honored by the Huffington Post with its "Game Changer" award in 2011, along with Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and economist Esther Duflo.