bio

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.