INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Communications Officer / Amsterdam, Netherlands
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Director of Government Relations
- Journalist
International Campaign for Tibet is pleased to welcome Franz A. Matzner as its new Director of Government Relations. Previously, Matzner served as Director of Federal Affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). There he campaigned to combat climate change, expand clean energy, and defend the universal right to clean air, clean water, vibrant oceans, and the preservation of indigenous heritages. One of his signature efforts was pursuing permanent protection from offshore drilling for America's Arctic Ocean, which President Obama granted in 2016. He has testified before committees in both houses of Congress on environmental issues.
Prior to his time at NRDC, Matzner carried out campaigns on behalf of Taxpayers for Common Sense, where he focused on ending harmful and wasteful federal subsidies.
Matzner graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania with a German Studies major and an Asian and Middle Eastern Studies minor, focused in part on the literature, history and practice of Buddhism. He continues those studies today.
Matzner is also a jazz journalist in his spare time and the father of extraordinary twin boys.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Vice - Chair of the ICT Board of Directors
Gare A. Smith chairs the corporate social responsibility and risk management practice at the law firm Foley Hoag, in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining Foley Hoag, he was Vice President of Levi Strauss & Co. Mr. Smith has also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor and was a U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the International Labor Organization, and the U.N. Working Group on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan Law School, he has authored three books on international human rights standards.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
John Ackerly is heading up a non-profit renewable energy organization called Alliance for Green Heat. The organization promotes policies and solutions for biomass to be a mainstream renewable, carbon-neutral thermal energy source, and a way for low-income populations to secure affordable and renewable heat.
Ackerly was the President of the International Campaign for Tibet for 10 years and worked for ICT for a total of 21 years. He wrote many reports on Tibet, including: Forbidden Freedom: Beijing's Control of Religion in Tibet; The Suppression of a People: Accounts of Torture and Imprisonment in Tibet; Nuclear Tibet: Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Waste on the Tibetan Plateau; A Season to Purge: Religious Repression in Tibet, and Jampa: The Story of Racism in Tibet.
He worked closely with the U.S. Congress and United Nations bodies to address the crisis in Tibet and has conducted 5 fact-finding trips to Tibet to investigate conditions. Mr. Ackerly attended Dartmouth College and the Washington College of Law, and researched the Romanian dissident movement at the University of Bucharest from 1978-1980. Prior to joining ICT, John practiced civil rights law in a private firm in Mississippi.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
- President of Curragh Oaks Consulting
Keith Pitts is currently the President of Curragh Oaks Consulting, an agriculture, environment and food consulting firm based in Sacramento, CA. Formerly, Keith was the Director of Public Policy for the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a think tank established by the Pew Charitable Trusts that is focused on policy issues concerning genetically engineered foods. Previously, under the leadership of Secretary of Agriculture, the Honorable Dan Glickman, Mr. Pitts was his Special Assistant for Domestic Policy. From 1991 to 1997, Mr. Pitts was a Democratic Subcommittee Staff Director for the House Committee on Agriculture. From 1986 to 1990, Mr. Pitts served as Legislative Director for Rep. Charlie Rose (D-NC), at which time he began his efforts for the Tibetan Cause and in the founding of the International Campaign for Tibet.
Job Titles:
- Chief Administrative Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
- Board Member / President and Founder of Casa Tibet Mexico, One of Latin America 's Oldest and Most Influential Dharma, Cultural and Pro Tibet Political Institutions
President and founder of Casa Tibet Mexico, one of Latin America's oldest and most influential Dharma, cultural and pro Tibet political institutions.
Received a BA in Western Philosophy from La Salle University in Mexico City (Degree awarded by the SEP) and a BA in Buddhist Studies from Naropa University in Boulder Colorado with a minor in Buddhist and Western Psychology.
Job Titles:
- Director of Development and Communications
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chairman of the ICT Board of Directors
- Honorary Chair
Richard Gere is an internationally renowned actor, social activist and philanthropist. For over twenty-five years, he has worked to draw attention and practical resolutions to humanitarian crises rooted in injustice, inequality and intolerance. Through his private foundation, the Gere Foundation, he has served as a longtime human rights advocate whose humanitarian efforts have taken him to Honduras, India, Kosovo, Mongolia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Switzerland and Tibet.
Since the early 1980's, Mr. Gere has vigorously advocated for human rights of the Tibetan people and the preservation of Tibetan culture. Gere was the Co-Founder and Chairman of Tibet House US in 1987 and joined the Board of Directors at the International Campaign for Tibet in 1992 in order to more effectively address national and international forums of influence. He has served as its Board Chairman since 1995 where Gere has addressed the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the US House of Representatives, European Parliament, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. He has also co-sponsored five historic visits to the United States by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Mr. Gere has been at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS where he began a personal campaign against stigma and discrimination associated with the disease in the early eighties. In 2002, he launched the Heroes Project in partnership with the Avahan AIDS Initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to raise awareness and galvanize societal leaders and media to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India.
Deepening his commitment to philanthropy in 1991, Mr. Gere founded the Gere Foundation. The Gere Foundation is a private grant-giving organization focused on advocacy and cultural preservation in the Tibetan community, education, public health and emergency relief.
He has received honors from amfAR, Amnesty International, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Hadassah International, the OneXOne Foundation, the Tibet Fund and the Harvard AIDS Institute. He is the recipient of CARE's Humanitarian Award for Global Change, the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award and the Marian Anderson Award.
Job Titles:
- Policy and Advocacy Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Advocacy & Research Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director for Chinese Outreach
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
Steve was a board member of the US Tibet Committee in New York before moving to Chicago where he was actively involved in the Tibetan US Resettlement Project in the early 1990's.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the ICT Board of Directors
Tempa Tsering was born on 15 May 1950 in Drumpa, Gyangtse, Tibet. After the occupation of Tibet in 1959, he and his parents escaped into exile in India. An alumnus of Dr. Grahams Homes, Kalimpong, he graduated with B.Sc. from Madras Christian College in South India. In 1973, he joined the Tibetan civil service, as an interpreter and office secretary at the Tibetan Settlement in Bylakuppe, South India.
Since that first posting he has dedicated his life to serving in the Tibetan administration. From 1974-80 he was deputy secretary at the Department of Information and International Relations of Central Tibetan Administration; from 1981-85 as deputy secretary (and later as additional secretary) at the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama; from 1988-1990 as additional secretary at the Department of Home; as chief coordinator in Bangalore at the Chief Representative's Office for the five settlements in the state of Karnataka; from 1991-1999 as the secretary of the Department of Information and International Relations;
In 2000, the Tibetan Parliament in Exile, from a list of nominees proposed by the Dalai Lama, elected him as minister (Tibetan: Kalon). He held the portfolio of Kalon for the Department of Home until the term of the 11th Cabinet (Tibetan: Kashag) expired in 2001. And then in 2006, nominated as Kalon by Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche and later approved by the Members of Assembly, he served as the Kalon for the Department of Information and International Relations while also serving as Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi. He continued in the post of Representative in New Delhi until his retirement in 2016.
Job Titles:
- Outreach and Engagement Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the ICT Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Finance Administration Officer / Berlin, Germany