Foundation Presidents’ Series Featuring The Atlantic Philanthropies President and CEO Christopher Oechsli
The Foundation Presidents’ Series cordially invites you to a lunchtime conversation with Christopher Oechsli, president and CEO of the Atlantic Philanthropies, moderated by Jane Wales, vice president of Philanthropy and Society at the Aspen Institute.
About the Speaker:
Christopher G. Oechsli is President and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies and serves on the Board of Directors. He leads Atlantic’s grantmaking through its four programme areas and Founding Chairman grants. His responsibilities include working with the Board to disburse Atlantic’s remaining endowment by creating significant opportunities for global opportunity and leverage across Atlantic’s programmes, philanthropic approaches and geographies. Atlantic will complete active grantmaking by 2016 and will close its doors by 2020.
Mr. Oechsli has over 30 years of experience in international business, law, philanthropy and policy development in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. He served as Atlantic’s Interim President and CEO from June-September 2011. Mr. Oechsli recently was Associate Fellow and Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a multi-issue think tank based in Washington, D.C. From 2007 to 2009, he served as Counsel to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, whom he advised on legislation and a range of domestic and international issues.
Mr. Oechsli was a senior staff member at The Atlantic Philanthropies and related companies for 17 years. He previously served as Atlantic’s Population Health Programme Director from 2000 to 2005, during which time he developed and directed Atlantic’s work to strengthen the health systems in Viet Nam and South Africa. He led the foundation’s development of higher education and rule-of-law initiatives in Viet Nam, South Africa, Australia and the United States; and supported the Founding Chairman’s work in health, education and medical research in the U.S., Australia and Viet Nam. Beginning in 1990, Mr. Oechsli served as a director, counsel or chief executive of operating companies within the General Atlantic Group, an international investment subsidiary of the Atlantic Foundation.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Oechsli worked with private law firms in Seattle, Shanghai, San Francisco and Taipei. In 1985, he became the first resident visiting law professor from the United States in the People’s Republic of China, where he taught constitutional and commercial law at the East China Institute of Politics and Law in Shanghai.
He has recently served on the boards of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, Progressives United, Project on Middle East Democracy and The Washington Office on Latin America.
Mr. Oechsli is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles. Following studies in Chinese language at Georgetown University and graduate studies at Columbia University, he received an M.A. in Foreign Affairs and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.
About Atlantic Philanthropies:
For more than 30 years Atlantic Philanthropies has been dedicated to advancing opportunity and lasting change for those who are unfairly disadvantaged or vulnerable to life’s circumstances. At the heart of Atlantic is the belief that all people have the right to opportunity, equity and dignity. As a limited life foundation, Atlantic has made grants in programme areas of Ageing, Children &Youth, Population Health, Reconciliation & Human Rights, and Founding Chairman programmes, and is now making a limited series of culminating grants that integrate programme themes and leverage distinctive philanthropic approaches across Atlantic’s geographies.
The Foundation Presidents’ Series cordially invites you to a lunchtime conversation with Christopher Oechsli, president and CEO of the Atlantic Philanthropies, moderated by Jane Wales, vice president of Philanthropy and Society at the Aspen Institute.