“I am pleased to welcome Elaine and Ruchi to these new roles,” said the museum’s director Chase F. Robinson. “More and more, our museum is operating beyond its four walls. Both Elaine and Ruchi’s perspectives will be invaluable to our institution as we continue to invite audiences around the country and around the world to learn about and celebrate Asian arts and cultures through boundary-breaking tools like our award-winning website and highly successful online programs.”
The museum’s website welcomes nearly one million online visitors every year. In 2024, the redesigned site won the Webby and Anthem awards. Videos of past online programs are available on YouTube.
Secretary Chao and Ms. Bhowmik’s four-year terms, effective January 2024 and September 30, 2024, respectively, were approved by the Smithsonian’s 17-member Board of Regents. Consisting of the Chief Justice of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, three members of the United States Senate, three members of the United States House of Representatives and nine citizens, the Board of Regents is responsible for the administration of the Smithsonian.
In addition, the Board of Regents has reappointed six trustees for second terms in 2024: Tai-Heng Cheng, Jeffrey P. Cunard, Mary Patricia Wilkie Ebrahimi, Nancy Swift Furlotti, Niloofar Razi Howe, and James (Jim) W. Lintott.
About the Trustees
Secretary Elaine Chao is the first Asian American woman to serve in a President’s cabinet in American history. She was confirmed on a bipartisan basis to two cabinet positions as U. S. Secretary of Transportation and U. S. Secretary of Labor. She is the longest serving Cabinet member since World War II.
As Secretary of Transportation, Secretary Chao focused on keeping the nation’s transportation system safe and efficient; invested in infrastructure; and, promoted American innovation in autonomous vehicles, drones and commercial space. During the COVID-19 health crisis, Secretary Chao’s decisive actions kept America’s transportation networks safe and moving. As Secretary of Labor, Secretary Chao focused on increasing the competitiveness of America’s workforce in a worldwide economy. She set new records for workplace safety and health, compensation and retirement security.
Prior to serving as U. S. Secretary of Labor, Secretary Chao was President and CEO of United Way of America where she restored public trust in the organization after it had been tarnished by scandal. She was also Director of the Peace Corps and started the program in Ukraine. In the private sector, Secretary Chao had been Vice President with Bank of America and Citicorp.
Secretary Chao was born in Taiwan and came to America at the age of eight not speaking any English; she received her citizenship at the age of 19. It was her experience transitioning to a new country that motivated her to ensure that everyone has access to the opportunities in our country. Secretary Chao earned her MBA from Harvard and is the recipient of 38 honorary doctorate degrees.
Ruchi Bhowmik serves as Vice President of Public Policy at Netflix, developing public policy strategy and managing the Netflix relationship with key stakeholders in the United States and Canada.
Ms. Bhowmik is an expert in technology policy, corporate governance issues, ESG and geopolitical risk. Prior to joining Netflix, Ms. Bhowmik was Global Vice Chair – Public Policy at EY and had responsibility for the firm’s public policy operations in more than 150 countries. She earlier served as Director of Strategic Initiatives in EY’s Office of the Global Chairman. Previously, she was the Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs for PepsiCo.
Prior to entering the private sector, Ms. Bhowmik served in multiple senior-level roles in the United States government, including serving as President Barack Obama’s Deputy Cabinet Secretary and Special Assistant to the President for Policy in the Office of the Chief of Staff. As a litigator, early in her career, she focused on international trade and gun violence prevention, including working with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Legal Action Project.
Ms. Bhowmik is a member of the Board of the National Partnership for Women and Families, the Center for International Private Enterprise and the Advisory Board of the Center for Global Affairs at New York University. She previously served as Co-President of the DC Public Library Foundation and on the boards of the World Policy Institute and the Women’s Hi-Tech Coalition. She is a recipient of the South Asian American Bar Association’s Legal Professional of the Year award.
Ms. Bhowmik speaks Japanese, having lived in Tokyo, Japan, and studied Japanese in college. She holds a B.A. in History from Yale University and received her J.D. from the University of Virginia. Ms. Bhowmik lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and two children.
Tai-Heng Cheng is a U.S. trial lawyer, international arbitration practitioner, and legal advisor to governments, C-suites, and boards.
Mr. Cheng has obtained and collected nine figure awards and judgments in international arbitration and court litigation. He has successfully represented corporations before the U.S. SEC, DOJ, and other government agencies. Sovereign nations and major corporations regularly appear before him in treaty and commercial arbitrations in which he serves as co-arbitrator or Tribunal President. Mr. Cheng’s awards that have been reviewed by courts were all unanimously confirmed.
His clients span virtually all key industries, including energy and infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, real estate, manufacturing, and financial services. Operating from New York, Mr. Cheng is global co-head of international arbitration and trade. In addition, he splits his time in the Singapore office, where he is co-managing partner. He is one of very few leading lawyers who have been recognized as a top arbitration practitioner and trial lawyer in North and South America and in Asia, including by Who’s Who Legal, Chambers Global (2016–2023), Chambers USA (2015–2023), Euromoney, Benchmark Litigation, American Lawyer, and Asia Legal.
Mr. Cheng is a board member of the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Asian Art and the Frick Collection. He is co-founder of the Cheng-Harrell Institute for Global Affairs and has served as vice president of the American Society of International Law. He is also an elected fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, The American Law Institute, and the Foreign Policy Association.
Jeffrey P. Cunard, Esq., is a retired partner of, and is now Of Counsel to, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. He became a partner of that firm in 1989, and was the managing partner of its Washington, D.C. office from January 2005 until his retirement at the end of 2020.
Mr. Cunard first joined the National Museum of Asian Art Board in 2001. He served as Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary in previous terms, and is currently the Chair of the Collections Committee. He has been a supporter of the museum since 1999 and is a member of the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art. Mr. Cunard also has been involved in other numerous arts and community activities, including serving on the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Washington National Opera, serving on the Getty Museum’s Villa Council and its Director’s Council, acting as Counsel to the College Art Association; and serving as co-founder, director and secretary of the Friends of Khmer Culture, Inc. He is also a former President of the Board of Directors and a former director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; a former director of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and a former director of The Choral Arts Society of Washington.
Mr. Cunard taught for several years at Harvard Law School, where he served as co-director of the Clinical Program at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Mr. Cunard co-authors a copyright treatise. He is a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles (B.A. 1977) and Yale Law School (J.D. 1980).
Mary Patricia Wilkie Ebrahimi is the director of several companies related to Quark City India, a real estate development and a construction company in Punjab. She is also on the board of Quark Benevolent, a charitable foundation that provides scholarships for young village girls in Punjab to attend high school and college.
Mrs. Ebrahimi holds an M.A. in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has worked as an editor and writer of educational material. Since 2015 Mrs. Ebrahimi, who was born in Cuba, has produced documentaries on Cuban architecture and culture.
Mrs. Ebrahimi is a former Trustee and Vice Chair of the Freer and Sackler Board of Trustees and a member of the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art. She is an avid gardener. Her collecting interests are Persian manuscripts and textiles.
Nancy Swift Furlotti, Ph.D., is a Jungian Psychoanalyst and psychologist living in Aspen, Colorado. She is a past president of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, where she trained, and is a founding member and past president of the Philemon Foundation. She is a member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Colorado and the Interregional Association of Jungian Analysts. She is on the boards of Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.
Dr. Swift Furlotti has established endowments in Neuroscience at both UCLA and Linacre College, Oxford University. She lectures internationally on Jungian topics such as dreams, mythology, trauma, the feminine, and the environment. Her company, Recollections, LLC, participates in the publication of early analysts’ unpublished material, such as the manuscripts of Erich Neumann, papers and drawings of Emma Jung, and various projects including C. G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, his research assistant.
Dr. Swift Furlotti’s book, Eternal Echoes: Erich Neumann’s Timeless Relevance to Consciousness, Creativity, and Evil has recently been published, and she has a forthcoming book, The Splendor of the Maya: A Journey into the Shadows at the Dawn of Creation, which will be published in 2024.
Niloofar Razi Howe has been an investor, executive and entrepreneur in the technology industry for the past 25 years, with a focus on cybersecurity for the past 10 years. She is a Senior Operating Partner at Energy Impact Partners, a VC fund investing in companies shaping the energy landscape of the future.
Previously, Mrs. Howe served as Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations at RSA, a global cybersecurity company. Prior to RSA, Mrs. Howe served as the Chief Strategy Officer of Endgame, Inc., a leading enterprise software security company. Prior to her operating roles, Mrs. Howe spent twelve years leading deal teams in private equity and venture capital; first as a Principal at Zone Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Los Angeles, and then as Managing Director at Paladin Capital Group, a Washington DC based private equity fund focused on investing in next generation security companies. Mrs. Howe started her professional career as a lawyer with O’Melveny & Myers and as a consultant with McKinsey & Co. She graduated with honors from Columbia College and holds a JD from Harvard Law School.
Mrs. Howe serves on the Board of Director of Recorded Future, on the Board of Advisors of Dragos, Enveil, Picnic Threat, and Endgame. She is a life member at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow, Cybersecurity Initiative at New America. Her non-profit work includes serving on the board of IREX as Vice Chair. Previously she served on the Board of Global Rights as Chair, Sibley Memorial Hospital as chair of its Investment Committee, and Sibley Memorial Hospital Foundation as Vice Chair.
James (Jim) W. Lintott is a Principal with Freedom Management Group, a provider of family office services and Chairman of Sterling Foundation Management. Mr. Lintott’s collecting interests are Japanese paintings and pottery and Chinese robes and paintings.
Mr. Lintott is a past member of the White House Fellows Selection Panel. He serves on the boards of a number of nationally known charities, including Children’s National Medical Center and Best Buddies International.
Mr. Lintott was also a Vice Chair of the Asia Society’s Annual Benefit and is the Chairman of the US-Japan Foundation. He received his J.D. (with distinction) from Stanford Law School, as well as an M.A. in applied economics and B.A. degree (Phi Beta Kappa) in economics and political science from Stanford University. Mr. Lintott and his wife, May, have two children, Jade and Marcus.
About the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching and interpreting art in ways that deepen our collective understanding of Asia and the world. Home to more than 46,000 objects, the museum stewards one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world. Its rich holdings bring the arts of Asia into direct dialogue with an important collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American works, providing an essential platform for creative collaboration and cultural exchange between the United States, Asia and the Middle East.
A 1906 gift from Charles Lang Freer paved the way for the museum’s opening in 1923, and today the National Museum of Asian Art is a leading resource for visitors, students and scholars in the United States and internationally. Its galleries, laboratories, archives and library are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum is free and open to the public 364 days a year (closed Dec. 25), making its exhibitions, programs, learning opportunities and digital initiatives accessible to global audiences.
