Matt is an accomplished philanthropy executive, policymaker,
pioneering advocate, activist and thought leader. He has more than
three-decades of local, state, national and international service, managing
projects, programs and organizations, building alliances and earning movements.
He has served in senior strategy and operational positions in private,
corporate philanthropy, and government grantmaking.
Known as a transformative leader and generative thinker, Matt is
an outstanding steward of strategy and staff, translating vision into
operational reality at scale. He is an adept systems thinker with high
ambiguity tolerance. He has a track record of conceptualizing and implementing
high impact grantmaking strategies, characterized by innovative public private
partnership and civic engagement. He has extensive management experience with
staff, large and small.
Most recently, Matt served as senior consultant for youth
engagement and subsequently as inaugural President of Oakland-based, XQ
Institute, the premiere education initiative of the Emerson Collective. Leading
up to Emerson, Matt was inaugural administrator of two successful, private
philanthropies (HDI, The Learning Coalition); Director on the National Security
Council staff (NSC) – Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian
Affairs; Senior consultant to the US Department of State (US Mission to the
United Nations), and the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS) –
the UN’s humanitarian assistance logistics agency; Senior Director at the
Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) - State of Hawaii’s indigenous advocacy and
grantmaking agency; Director at Caspian Securities – the first emerging
market-only investment bank; Student leader of a global grassroots movement in
support of Tiananmen Square uprising; Founder of the first student led,
internet-based, global human rights network -- the Student Human Rights Exchange
(SHARE); and, Founding & Managing Partner of The Greenhouse, the first
double bottom-line, ecosystem economics-based, high-tech business incubator in
Hawaii.
Over the years, he has distinguished himself in the domains of
public education, civic engagement and human rights with a history in national
security, multilateral affairs, democratic governance, international diplomacy,
humanitarian assistance, civil military affairs, military psychological operations,
religious freedom, and landmine eradication.
Matt holds a BA from Tufts University in Art History, a
certificate in multicultural communications from the School for International
Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, and an MPA from the JFK School of Government
at Harvard University.
Outside of his professional pursuits, Matt participates in
working groups on civil-military affairs and delivery of humanitarian
assistance in complex emergencies. He sits on a handful of Hawaii-based,
non-profit boards.
