Board

Karen Tse – Founder and CEO

A former public defender, Karen first developed her interest in the cross section of criminal law and human rights as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow in 1986, after observing Southeast Asian refugees detained in a local prison without trial. In 1994, she moved to Cambodia to train the country’s first core group of public defenders and subsequently served as a United Nations Judicial Mentor. Under the auspices of the U.N., she trained judges and prosecutors, and established the first arraignment court in Cambodia.After witnessing thousands of prisoners of all ages being held without trials, usually after being tortured into making ‘confessions’, Karen founded International Bridges to Justice in 2000 to promote systemic global change in the administration of criminal justice. In the initial stages, she negotiated groundbreaking measures in judicial reform with the Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian governments. Under her leadership, IBJ has expanded its programming to sixteen countries, including Rwanda, Burundi and India. IBJ has created a Global Defense Support Program to bring IBJ assistance to public defenders worldwide. In 2010, IBJ launched the Justice Training Center in Singapore.A graduate of UCLA Law School and Harvard Divinity School, Karen was named by U.S. News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders in 2007. She has been recognized by the Skoll Foundation, Ashoka and Echoing Green as a leading social entrepreneur. Karen was the recipient of the 2008 Harvard Divinity School’s First Decade Award, and the 2008 American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award. She also received the 2009 Gleitsman International Award at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Daniel R. Fung – Chair of the Board of Directors

Daniel R. Fung, the first person of Chinese extraction to serve as Solicitor General of Hong Kong, doing so under respectively Governor Chris Patten and Chief Executive CH Tung straddling the territory’s reversion to Chinese sovereignty (1994-8), is Senior Counsel of the Hong Kong Bar and the Chairman of Des Voeux Chambers, voted by Asia Law & Practice as Chambers of the Year for 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 & 2008, and an accredited arbitrator of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC).

Mr Fung is a specialist constitutional lawyer with expertise in the setting up of Special Administrative Regions (SAR’s) and Special Economic Zones (SEZ’s) including the establishment of parliaments and legislative bodies in such regions and zones and has worked with the Central People’s Government in Beijing, the Hong Kong SAR, the Macau SAR, the Shenzhen SEZ and the Zhuhai SEZ Governments. From 1985-1990, he was involved in the drafting of the mini-constitution for the Hong Kong SAR. He has advised UNDP on the Greater Tumen River Initiative and the setting up of a Free Trade Zone straddling China, Russia and North Korea. Mr Fung is Co-Chair of the United Nations Peace & Development Foundation (UNPDF), President of the International Law Association (ILA) Hong Kong Chapter, Honorary President of the International Association of Industry & Commerce (IAIC), President of the Board of the International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), Vice Chairman of the Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS), Vice-President of the Academy of Experts (TAE), Member of the Board of Governors of the East West Center (EWC), Council Member of International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), national delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), elected Council Member of China Law Society (CLS), Founding Governor of the China-US Exchange Foundation, Chairman of the International Advisory Board to the Government of Shanghai Xuhui District and member of the Strategic Development Commission of the Hong Kong Government. Made a Fellow of his alma mater University College London in 2005 where he graduated LLB (1974) and LLM (1978) and a member of Middle Temple since 1974, the English Bar since 1975 and the Hong Kong Bar since 1977, Mr Fung was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1990 and Senior Counsel in 1997. Mr Fung served on the Basic Law Consultative Committee (1985-90) from its inception to promulgation as Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, as Deputy Judge of the High Court (1992-4) and on the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong Government (1993-4). Mr Fung was Visiting Scholar to Harvard Law School (1998-9), Senior Visiting Fellow to Yale Law School (1999), Distinguished Fulbright Scholar for Hong Kong to the United States (2000), Visiting Professor to Peking University Law School (2007- ) and to Sun Yat Sen University Law School in China (2004-7), member of the World Bank International Advisory Council on Law & Justice (1999-2005), special advisor to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on corporate governance in China (2001), on rule of law capacity building in Cambodia and Laos (2000-2), and on the establishment of the Greater Tumen River Initiative and the Northeast Asia Forum, non-executive director of the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (1999-2004) and the Hong Kong Airport Authority (1999-2005). From 2002-2008, Mr Fung served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority, an industry regulator of television and radio broadcasting in and out of Hong Kong serving as Asia’s media and communications hub.

Sandford R. Climan

Sandy Climan is President of Entertainment Media Ventures, Inc., a company active in media investment and strategic advisory work, with a particular focus on innovative technologies pushing forward the boundaries of media and entertainment.  Mr. Climan has also been active in both motion picture and television production, most notably as Executive Producer of the first digital live-action 3D motion picture, “U2 3D,” Co-Executive Producer of the CBS primetime series “Robbery Homicide Division,” and as Producer of “The Aviator,” the Howard Hughes biographical feature film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for which Mr. Climan was awarded a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

Mr. Climan has served in a number of corporate senior management positions in media and entertainment. From 2007 to 2010, Mr. Climan served as the first CEO of 3ality Digital, a leading company in the development and commercialization of technologies which enable perfect digital 3D image capture, digital 3D broadcast and software that enables consumer applications of 3D entertainment. Within four years, Mr. Climan took the company from no certified products to 3ality being recognized as a global leader in 3D technology.

Earlier positions have included Executive Vice President and President of Worldwide Business Development of Universal Studios from 1995 to 1997, and as a member of the senior management team at Creative Artists Agency from 1986 to 1995 and 1997 to 1999, serving as both a talent agent and as founding head of CAA’s corporate representation practice. At Universal, Mr. Climan oversaw corporate international strategy, strategic marketing and five studio operating divisions with $1.4 billion in sales: Consumer Products, Home Video, Pay Television, New Media and Spencer Gifts. At CAA, Mr. Climan was part of the senior management team for 12 years, representing talent including Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Danny DeVito, and Michael Mann. Mr. Climan also served as the founding head of CAA’s corporate practice, working with global companies including Sony Corporation on its acquisition of Columbia Pictures, Matsushita Electric on its acquisition of MCA/Universal, Coca-Cola on revitalizing its advertising, Credit Lyonnais on the restructuring of MGM, and NYNEX, Bell Atlantic and Pacific Telesis on the creation of their video joint venture, Tele-TV.

Prior to joining CAA, Mr. Climan held various executive positions in the entertainment industry. He served as President of Lion’s Gate Studios; President of Wescom Productions, a subsidiary of Chronicle Publishing; and Vice President of Production for The David Gerber Company, a major independent television company. He began his career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, overseeing pay-television, international theatrical distribution and, later, working in feature film production.

Mr Climan serves on several charitable boards, including International Bridges to Justice, The American Cinematheque,The Fulfillment Fund, The Chief Executive Leadership Institute of the Yale School of Management, and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.  He is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and also serves as an advisor on entertainment and media to the World Economic Forum and its Annual Gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

Kenneth Neil Cukier

Kenneth Neil Cukier is the Japan business and finance correspondent of The Economist in Tokyo. Earlier, he covered technology from London, focusing on Internet governance and intellectual property. Previously he was the technology editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, the European editor of Red Herring, and worked at The International Herald Tribune in Paris. From 2002 to 2004 Mr. Cukier was a research fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he worked on a book about the Internet and international relations. His writings have also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, among others. He has been a commentator on business and technology matters for CBS, CNN, NPR and the BBC and others. Mr. Cukier also serves on the board of advisors to the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

Joan Darby

Joan M. Darby is a counsel to the Corporate and Finance Practice of the Washington, D.C. law firm Dickstein Shapiro LLP, which she joined in 1980. With a concentration on the natural gas energy industry, Ms. Darby has focused on the administrative, regulatory, transactional and judicial aspects of developing energy projects. She also has experience in the airline, railroad, trucking, and maritime industries. In 2004 and 2005, Ms. Darby served as the Deputy Director of International Bridges to Justice. Before joining Dickstein Shapiro in 1980, she was a field attorney in the Milwaukee Regional Office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)and a clerk for the NLRB Division of Administrative Law Judges. Ms. Darby is a graduate of Wellesley College, and received her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School.

Francis James

Francis James brings over 15 years of international human rights and legal development experience to help chair and lead the board of directors’ vision for IBJ. He is currently the senior justice advisor at the United Nations integrated peace-building mission in Bujumbura, Burundi, and was formerly the principal justice and security sector advisor for the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery at the UN Development Program in New York. In 1994, he directed the Cambodian Defenders Project which trained the first public defenders and later founded Legal Aid of Cambodia, the first nationwide legal aid. He has worked with the Ministry of Justice in Vietnam to establish guidelines for the establishment of a National Legal Aid Agency and regional legal aid offices nationwide. In China, he has worked as an international consultant to UNDP’s project supporting legal aid in China. As a former White House Fellow and Special Assistant in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Francis litigated bilateral legal trade issues before the World Trade Organization in Geneva and consulted on matters concerning China’s WTO accession bid. From 2000-04, Francis was the Director for International Programs at the Vera Institute of Justice, an innovative criminal justice reform organization based in New York.

David Little

David Little is the T.J. Dermot Dunphy Professor of the practice in Religion, Ethnicity, and International Conflict; former director of the Center for the study of Values in Public Life, and a faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

Regina Mooney

Regina Mooney is an educational administrator with experience at both the college and independent school levels. Raised in Connecticut, Regina earned a BA degree in Philosophy and Environmental Science at Southern Connecticut State University before entering Yale Divinity School in 1976. Upon receiving her M.Div. she became a lay minister at the Newman Center St. John’s College in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Realizing she was gravitating toward more scholarly passions, Regina went pursued a Ph.D. in Theology and social ethics at Claremont Graduate University and received it in 1992. Her dissertation was titled, Transgression as Transformation and dealt with the intersections of religiously mystical experience and political choices. She has written on the subject of the relationship of crucifixion piety and violence as well as the psycho-social development of female mystics. Dr. Mooney has taught religion and philosophy at Harvey Mudd College, Mount Holyoke College, and Reed College where she was also vice president and dean of student services. Reflecting on her experience as both an academic and an administrator, she has often said that while her favorite thing in the world is to think about problem solving, the practice of actually solving problems, creating systems that mean something and setting institutions on course to achieve good things for real people puts my thinking into action. The art of administration requires collaboration, empathy, backbone, and vision make it both challenging and fun.At present Regina Mooney is the Chief Development Officer at the Stoneleigh-Burnham School in Greenfield, Massachusetts. In addition she has an active consulting business in educational planning. Dr. Mooney is a member of the Council on the the Advancement and Support of Education, the Association of Fund Raising Professionals, and past vice president of the Western Region of the the American Academy of Religion. Most recently she was vice president and chair of the development committee for the Treehouse Foundation, an intergenerational community that supports families caring for adoptive children coming from troubled family situations.She has a fifteen year old son who she claims, is always providing her with opportunities to think, love, worry, risk, laugh, and engage.

Peter Schönherr

Ambassador Peter Schönherr is the Dutch Ambassador to Switzerland, with a seat in Bern. He was born in Makassar, Indonesia in 1947.After concluding his high school education in The Hague, he studied political sciences and international relations, as well as cultural anthropology at Leiden University. He spent some years at the thinktank Teldersstichting, and then entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1977. Most of his career has been spent at the Ministry in The Hague and he specializes in Development Cooperation. From 1987 to 1992 he was Head of Development Cooperation at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in New Delhi, India. In 2001, he was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Zambia and Malawi with seat in Lusaka, and in 2005 he was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Rwanda and Burundi with seat in Kigali. After a short period as Consul-General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2008, he was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Switzerland with seat in Berne. On 14th October, 2008 he presented his Credentials to Mr Pascal Couchepin, President of the Swiss Confederation.

Grace Toh – Treasurer

Grace Y. Toh has been a financial professional for more than 25 years. Grace is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Toh Michaels Private Wealth Management, LLC and has extensive experience in private banking and wealth management, concentrating on building and managing long term relationships with high net worth clients. Previously, she was a Senior Vice President at HSBC Private Bank, The Private Bank of Bank of America and Wachovia Wealth Management, where she served the unique needs of high net worth individuals and families.She is a graduate of Wellesley College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Chinese Studies. In addition, she studied management information systems and accounting at MIT’s Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, and earned her Masters of Business Administration in Finance from the Jesse H. Jones School of Management at Rice University. Ms. Toh is a licensed Certified Financial Planner and holds NASD Series 7, 66 and 63. In addition to her duties at IBJ, she is serving or has served on a number of boards, including Wellesley College Business Leadership Council, Wellesley College Alumnae Association, the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, Friends of National Zoo, and Financial Planning Association of the National Capital Area, among others.

Luis Velasco

Mr. Velasco is an advisor to various organizations primarily focused on economic and social development. He provides advise on various corporate strategy and financial matters including, for NGOs, fund raising, fund management and investment execution. He currently sits on boards such as the World Education and Development Fund (N. Y. based foundation focused on Latin America’s education sector), Promotora Social Mexico (Mexico based foundation focused on providing capital to projects targeted to the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid), and Banco Compartamos (Mexico’s largest Micro-Finance Bank), amongst others. Before returning to Mexico, Mr. Velasco lived for 15 years in France and the U.S. He spent 11 years in NY, with a brief stay in Hong Kong, working in the M&A and Corporate Finance departments of J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs & Co. Before leaving NY, he was global co-head of J.P. Morgan’s media M&A practice. During his finance career he initiated and executed capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, principal investment and other advisory assignments for clients across various industries. He has a Masters degree in Business Administration from Harvard University and a Civil Engineering degree from Universidad Anahuac. He is fluent in English and Spanish, and conversant in French.

Mia Yamamoto

Mia Yamamoto has had a distinguished career in criminal law spanning over 30 years. She is a past chair of the Multicultural Bar Alliance, and a past chair of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice – a statewide organization of over 2500 private and public defenders, and a California State Bar Delegate to the American Bar Association. She has served on a number of boards and committees for groups including the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, ACLU, LA County Bar, National Lawyers Guild. She has conducted lectures and spoken on a number of panel discussions including the President’s Initiative on Race, the ABA, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, CACJ/CPDA Death Penalty Seminars. She is called upon regularly to do commentaries in the news media on issues related to criminal and constitutional law.