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Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang
Chair, Asian Corporate Governance Association

Ambassador Yang was the U.S. Executive Director on the Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank in Manila from 1993 to 1999. She was the first woman Executive Director appointed by the United States Government to the Board of a multilateral development bank and the first Executive Director appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the United States Senate.

The first woman and the first minority appointed to serve as California's Savings and Loan Commissioner, she was responsible for the regulation and supervision of the then $80-billion state-chartered savings and loan industry from 1980-82. She was the first Asian American appointed to the Board of Administration of the Public Employees' Retirement System of the State of California (CalPERS) and served as Vice President of the Board and Vice-chairman of its Investment Committee. She was a Board member of the Blue Cross of California and its Budget and Finance Committee. She chaired the Research Management Committee of The 1990 Institute, which co-sponsored with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco major policy-related studies on China's economic reform.

Ambassador Yang is an advisor to Lombard Investments, a private equity investment firm in San Francisco and Acting Chair of the Asian Corporate Governance Association in Hong Kong. She serves on the board of The Pacific Pension Institute, The Center for Asia Pacific Policy, RAND Corporation and The California Asia Business Council. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Asia Foundation Task Force on The Role of America in Asia in the 21st Century, The Committee of 100 and The Trusteeship for Betterment of Women in Los Angeles.

A graduate of St. John's University in Shanghai, Ambassador Yang earned her Master of Philosophy degree (Economics) from Columbia University of New York. Her areas of concentration were banking, finance and international economics.