This Committee of 100 Conversations – “Recollections, Pioneers and Heroes” event featured Committee of 100 member Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang, who talked about “A Pioneer In Governance.”

Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang is a pioneer in the oversight of important financial institutions and and the first woman and the first minority to represent the United States on the board of a multilateral financial institution. She served as U.S. Executive Director to the board of the Asian Development Bank in Manila, is Chair Emerita of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA), was the first minority appointed to serve as California’s Savings and Loan Commissioner, and was also the first minority appointed to the board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the United States.

Throughout her career she has directed and driven the institutions she has chaired towards policies and practices that were more equitable and enduring, guided by good governance, transparent information disclosure, improved rules on participation and consultation, a robust policies on gender—all at a time when women were virtually absent from senior leadership, let alone executive directorships or boardrooms.

Calvin Tsao, Architect Principal at Tsao & McKown Architects and a Committee of 100 Member, was the moderator.

Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang
Former U.S. Ambassador and first woman Executive Director appointed

Governance Pioneer, Former U.S. Ambassador and the first woman and the first minority to represent the United States on the board of a multilateral financial institution, Linda Tsao Yang served as U.S. Executive Director and Ambassador to  to the board of the Asian Development Bank in Manila, a multilateral development bank for Asia, from 1993 to1999, She was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1993, the first woman and the first minority to represent the United States on the board of a multilateral financial institution. At her retirement in 1999, the U.S. Department of the Treasury awarded her the Distinguished Service Medal of the department. She was cited for steering the bank towards policies and practices which made development assistance more equitable and enduring: good governance, transparent information disclosure, improved rules on participation and consultation, a policy on gender; and for leading the bank toward a stronger emphasis on quality and the sustainability of its development assistance. The citation also highlighted her key role in defining the bank’s participation in the international response to the Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998.

Yang is Chair Emerita of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) based in Hong Kong which she chaired from 2001 to 2014. The ACGA is a nonprofit, member-supported organization founded in 2000 and chartered under the laws of Hong Kong. Its mission is to conduct research, education, and advocacy to improve corporate governance practices in Asian capital markets. At the time of her retirement in 2014, assets under management by its global institutional investor members amounted to US$14 trillion. From 2003 to 2010, she served on the board of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) – one of three banknote issuing banks in Hong Kong – as an independent non-executive director. The founding chair of the Strategy and Budget Committee of the board, Yang worked with her colleagues to launch the first Five-Year Growth and Development Plan for the bank. Earlier in her career, she was the first minority appointed to serve as California’s Savings and Loan Commissioner; she was also the first minority appointed to the board of the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the United States. She was Vice-Chairman of the Investment Committee of the board and was unanimously elected by her fellow board members to the position of  Vice President of the Board.

Yang was an invited panelist on International Economy at the economic summit led by then President-elect Clinton in Little Rock, Arkansas in December 1992. Her membership includes the international Council of the Bretton Woods Committee in Washington DC.; Council on Foreign Relations in New York; Trusteeship for Betterment of Women of Los Angeles/ International Women’s Forum; Trustee Emerita of The Asia Foundation in San Francisco; Committee of 100 in New York, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Asia Pacific Policy, RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California.

She is Honorary-Chair of The 1990 Institute; Life Member of the Pacific Pension Investment Institute, a global non-profit organization based in San Francisco; Director of the Year 2008 (Hang Seng Index), Hong Kong Institute of Directors; Honorary  Citizen of Shanghai 2016 awarded by Shanghai Municipal  Government for her contribution to improving the city’s environment and public health; and Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, Princeton University.

Yang graduated from St. John’s University in Shanghai with a major in economics in 1945; a master’s degree from Columbia Business School in New York in 1948; and was awarded M.Phil. (economics) degree, Columbia University in 1975.

Calvin Tsao
Architect Principal, Tsao & McKown Architects;
Committee of 100 Member, Nephew of Linda Tsao Yang

Calvin Tsao is a recognized and leading voice in contemporary architecture whose work draws from a rigorous engagement with a variety of art forms.

Along with his partner, Zack McKown, Tsao received the 2022 AIANY Medal of Honor, and in 2009 the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Award for Interior Design. In 2012, Tsao was the recipient of Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Legacy Award. A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Cooper Union, Syracuse University, and Parsons The New School for Design, lectured at universities and served as guest critic internationally.

Tsao & McKown’s current work includes the reconfiguration of the National Palace Museum of Taipei as well as the addition of an entry pavilion, and in Atlanta, working with a university and their private partner to develop a community of 3,000 residences, half of which are designated to be affordable. Other significant works include the Sunbrella Headquarters in Burlington, NC; Sangha, a prototype community for 5,000 residents and At One Wellness Retreat in Suzhou, China; the renovation of the Jewish Museum permanent collection in New York, Brower Park Library in Brooklyn, Jianfu Pavilion at the Palace Museum in Beijing, Suntec City in Singapore, as well as various residences and product design.

Calvin serves a Board Chair of the American Academy in Rome, and is an active member and President Emeritus of the Architectural League of New York.

Through the Tsao Family Foundation, Calvin endowed the formation of the Real Estate Practicum at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as a Fellowship in intercultural philosophy and a residency for Asian artists and scholars at the American Academy in Rome.

Calvin has a bachelors degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Masters of Architecture from Harvard University