American India Foundation's Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI) is a public-private health intervention designed to significantly reduce maternal, neonatal, and child mortality in rural and impoverished communities across India. It operates by empowering local frontline health workers with training, resources, and continuous support in providing effective, low-cost, home-based care for pregnant and nursing women, newborns, and children under five.

To date, MANSI has directly served over 500,000 pregnant women, aided over 300,000 children and newborns, and empowered over 250,000 adolescent girls with health, education, and life skills. 

Dr. Sunita Pereira is a member of the New England Advisory Board of American India Foundation (AIF) and has actively supported and advocated for AIF's Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI). Dr. Pereira is an academic neonatal physician who practiced at The Tufts Medical Center, Boston, for three decades until her retirement.

She has had a keen interest in maternal and newborn care and has contributed to policies that have contributed to the advancement of care and clinical outcomes. She is also a trustee of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, which holds the most extensive contemporary Indian Art collection in the USA.

Kalpana Kanthan is the Chief Development and Marketing Officer at the American India Foundation (AIF), where she oversees the US and India philanthropic portfolio, as well as marketing and communications, to drive AIF’s strategic growth and impact.

Her initial training in journalism and television writing and production led to a diverse, two-decade-long career spanning consulting, fundraising, program development, marketing, and communications for New York City-based nonprofits.

Before joining AIF, Kalpana was at Columbia Business School’s W. Edwards Deming Center, where she ran the Deming Cup for Operational Excellence, a key fundraising initiative that generated numerous strategic partnerships between the school's academic community and Fortune 500 companies.

Takeda is focused on creating better health for people and a brighter future for the world. We aim to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments in our core therapeutic and business areas, including gastrointestinal and inflammation, rare diseases, plasma-derived therapies, oncology, neuroscience, and vaccines. Together with our partners, we aim to improve the patient experience and advance a new frontier of treatment options through our dynamic and diverse pipeline.

As a leading values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan, we are guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet. Our employees in approximately 80 countries and regions are driven by our purpose and are grounded in the values that have defined us for more than two centuries.

Dr. Sarah I. Sheikh holds dual responsibilities at Takeda as the Head of Global Development spanning all therapeutic areas – GI and Inflammation, Neuroscience, Oncology, Plasma-Derived Therapies, Vaccines – and as the Head of the Neuroscience Therapeutic Area. She is a physician-scientist with more than 20 years of experience in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, with end-to-end research and development experience, from bench research, through translation and development to approvals and direct patient care. Sarah received an MSc in Cell Physiology and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, BM BCh, from the University of Oxford, Corpus Christi College. She completed her clinical training in internal medicine at Oxford where she was also a clinical tutor. She completed a neurology residency and fellowship in neuromuscular neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, where she also took on responsibilities as an attending physician and instructor in medicine. She currently serves on the Board of Directors at Target ALS and Cerevance and is a member of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. 

Roberta Lipson is the founder of United Family Healthcare (UFH) and a pioneer of China’s private healthcare industry, with over 40 years of experience. She originally co-founded UFH’s predecessor company, Chindex, in 1981, growing it into China's first and largest foreign-invested healthcare system, which now spans 11 hospitals and nearly 20 clinics across major cities. Ms. Lipson led the company through its NASDAQ IPO in 1994 and subsequent private transactions. She currently serves as Vice Chair of New Frontier Health, Director of the U.S.-China Business Council, and is Chair Emeritus of AmCham China.

Additionally, she founded and leads the United Foundation for China’s Health (UFCH), a not-for-profit providing life-saving interventions and health management for underserved populations, including pilot programs in cervical cancer eradication.

Board Member, Global Women Asia

Eyee Hsu is a Board Member of Global Women Asia. A passionate communicator and storyteller, Eyee works with clients to produce powerful events through effective messaging. She lived in Beijing for over 15 years, where she hosted and produced two flagship television programs on CGTN and reported for NBC during the Beijing Olympics.

Eyee is also a Co-Founder of Mountain Towns 2030, an organization supporting outdoor communities to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. Dedicated to create and amplify impact in social and environmental issues, Eyee also serves on the Boards of Park City Community Foundation, World Trade Center Utah and PBS Utah, among others.

Board Member, Global Women Asia

Elaine Wong is a Board Member of Global Women Asia. Elaine has over 20 years of private equity experience in the US and Asia. She is a Co-Founder and Partner of H+ Partners, an investment fund that invests in companies that actively support decarbonization. Elaine serves on the Board of Trustees of MIT, Global Women Asia, Protium Green Solutions and Encina. She also serves on the Advisory Board for Ingrid Capacity, Overlook Investments.

Michelle Wu, is working to make Boston a home for everyone. Since taking office, she has invested more in making housing affordable than any other administration in Boston’s history. In her first full year as mayor, gun violence fell to the lowest level on record in the city—and has continued to fall every year since. She promised a paid summer job to every BPS student who wanted one—and delivered, and has expanded Boston’s Pre-K and early education to serve more children and families than ever before.

From climate resiliency and transportation, to public health and community safety, Mayor Wu has established Boston as a global leader in delivering solutions to the biggest challenges families are facing.

She has divested City funds from fossil fuels and ended their use in all new City construction and major renovations; saved residents and businesses more than $230 million in energy costs through Boston’s Community Choice Electricity Program; secured funding for thousands of new jobs to protect Boston’s coastline; and doubled the number of trees planted on Boston’s streets every year.

Mayor Wu has boosted public transit ridership in the city through fare-free Boston bus lines; installed more speed humps to protect pedestrians and neighbors on residential streets in the last two years than in the previous six combined; secured a board seat granting Boston a voice in governing the MBTA; and deployed new technology to optimize traffic signals and reduce congestion on Boston’s roads.

Under her leadership, the City settled a collective bargaining process with law enforcement that set a national standard for accountability and community policing—investing in officer education, improving family leave policies, and ending arbitration as a way to avoid disciplinary action for the most serious offenses.

Building on the success of her BPS Sundays Pilot program, Mayor Wu worked to make nine of Boston’s leading museums and cultural institutions free to all school-aged children in the city. As a Boston Public Schools mom, she has expanded early college and career programs to more high school students than ever before; invested in the District’s first long-term vision for facilities informed by clear data and community standards; and delivered more resources for academics, arts, and student athletics across our neighborhoods.

Mayor Wu’s administration has cut the ribbon on 20 new or newly-renovated public parks; supported more than 90 new small businesses in revitalizing formerly vacant neighborhood retail spaces, creating more than 800 new jobs; filled more than 18,000 potholes; and helped nearly 700 families become first-time homeowners through City of Boston programs.

Mayor Wu is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She began her career in public service interning at City Hall for Mayor Tom Menino and is an alumna of the Rappaport Fellows Program in Law and Public Policy. Mayor Wu lives in Roslindale with her husband Conor and their three children, Blaise, Cass, and Mira.

Tiffany Chu is the Chief of Staff to Mayor Michelle Wu. Tiffany comes from a background in design, urban planning, and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the City of Boston, she was the CEO & Co-founder of Remix, a collaborative software platform for transportation planning used by 500+ cities around the world. Remix was named a Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Bloomberg for furthering sustainability and equity in the field, and was acquired by Via in 2021.

Previously, Tiffany was at Code for America, Y Combinator, Zipcar, and Continuum, and was appointed as a Commissioner of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. She's been named in Forbes' 30 Under 30, LinkedIn's Next Wave of Leaders Under 35, and featured at SXSW, Helsinki Design Week, the New York Times Cities for Tomorrow Conference, and more. Tiffany has a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) School of Architecture and Planning.

Tiffany is a first-generation Taiwanese American.

Tiziana Figliolia is a Board Member of Global Women Asia. A global finance executive and passionate advocate for women’s leadership and education, Tiziana is the CFO at IDC. She brings nearly 30 years of cross-cultural and operational expertise, leading transformation and growth across companies such as Autodesk, PTC, Hootsuite, and InterDigital from Asia and Europe to North America. Beyond her corporate career, Tiziana has long championed women’s empowerment and equity.

She co-founded Full STEAM Forward. During her decade in Shanghai, she also served as President of International Professional Women’s Society (IPWS), one of oldest and largest women’s communities in China, expanding networking, mentorship and professional development opportunities for women across that region.

Dr. Howard K. Koh is the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan). At Harvard Chan, he is the inaugural Chair of the Initiative on Health and Homelessness and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality and Religion.

A distinguished public servant, Dr. Koh served as the 14th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2009-2014) after being nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the US Senate. Prior to that, he was the Commissioner of Public Health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1997-2003). A graduate of Yale College and Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Koh trained at Boston City Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, earning board certifications in four medical fields.

He has published over 325 articles and received over 70 awards and honors, including six honorary doctorate degrees and the Sedgwick Memorial Medal from the American Public Health Association. In 2019, HHS established the annual Dr. Howard K. Koh Award for Excellence in Leadership in his honor.

Dr. Clarence Lam is an assistant professor and program director at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and serves as the medical director of occupational medicine at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. A board-certified expert in preventive and occupational medicine, Dr. Lam previously demonstrated critical leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic as the interim director for Occupational Health Services at Johns Hopkins Medicine and University, overseeing the health of over 50,000 employees.

Beyond his professional career, he is a state senator representing District 12 in the Maryland General Assembly, where he serves on the Senate Finance Committee and chairs the Executive Nominations Committee. As the only physician and only Asian American legislator in the Senate, he made history in January 2025 by becoming the first Asian American to chair a standing committee.

Dr. Renu Bhatia is most recently the Chair of The Listing Committee of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and is currently the Chairman and Co-Founder of Opharmic Technology, Hong Kong, and the Independent Non-Executive Director of HutchMed, a commercial-stage, biopharmaceutical company. Born in India and raised in London, Dr. Renu Bhatia has lived and worked across three continents. She moved to Hong Kong from New York over 30 years ago and now calls the city home.

Trained as a medical doctor in the UK, she began her career working in the National Health Service before realizing her passion lay in understanding the broader systems behind clinical decisions—what she called "the economics of healthcare." This curiosity led her to pursue an MBA at Yale University. Outside of health innovation, Dr. Bhatia is also the co-founder of Asia Fintech Angels, a financial technology-centered company that invests in early-stage fintech companies.

Walter Sweet is Co-CEO and President of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, where he oversees organizational growth and leads global program teams. He previously served as executive in charge of advisory and sponsored project practice, and frequently represents RPA in the press, speaking engagements, and other external activities.

Since joining RPA, he has advised foundations and philanthropists on initiatives in health, education, entrepreneurship, and community development, including guiding complex, high-profile philanthropic projects that require sensitivity and strategic insight.

Before RPA, Walter was a partner in a family business focused on defense threat reduction in Ukraine. He is a board member of the Business Outreach Center Network, which aims to help disadvantaged entrepreneurs access resources to launch their businesses.

Board Member, Global Women Asia

Eric Wong is Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Stillpoint Investments, a China-focused public equities investment firm. Prior to founding Stillpoint, Eric was Managing Director at Blue Ridge Capital, a global investment firm, for more than a decade, based across Beijing and New York. Eric began his career with Morgan Stanley's investment banking division in China. Beyond investments, Eric has served as Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama’s Foundation, a board member of Global Women Asia, and a member of Asia Society’s Asia 21 Fellowship.

Founder and Chairwoman, GWA

Wenchi Yu is the Founder and Chairwoman of Global Women Asia. A globally experienced leader across the nonprofit, government, media, and business sectors, she is dedicated to building a worldwide community that amplifies Asian perspectives in global affairs. With over two decades of experience at the intersection of business, policy, and society, Wenchi has held strategic roles at Goldman Sachs and the U.S. Department of State, and has advised high-growth technology companies on cross-border market entry strategies.

Wenchi is a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of several nonprofit organizations, and the producer and host of media programs on foreign policy.