Hua Dan Board of Directors
- Barbara Woodward, Chair
- Barbara Woodward, CMG, OBE has lived and worked in China for over seven years, as an English teacher in Wuhan and Tianjin in the 1980s and from 2003-2009 with the British Em-bassy in Beijing, where she was Minister and Deputy Head of Mission from 2007-2009. Barbara is a career diplomat, including at the United Nations, on EU issues and in Russia. Barbara has an MA in International Relations from Yale University, (1990) and in History from St Andrews University, Scotland (1983).
- Nick Rowland, Honorary Treasurer
- Nick Rowland, Honorary Treasurer, has lived in Hong Kong for well over 20 years and has previously served on the Board of Greenpeace China. Having travelled extensively in China over the years he has seen for himself the immense need for individuals within China’s migrant and rural population to improve their self-awareness, their confidence, and understand and realise the potential that we all hold within ourselves regardless of social class or education. Nick’s career over the years has focused on consulting and IT services and he is currently a Director of Serisys Solutions Ltd. He holds degrees from Harvard Business School and Oriel College, Oxford.
- Lisa Genasci, Member
- Lisa is CEO of ADM Capital Foundation in Hong Kong. She established the foundation five years ago for the partners of Hong Kong-based investment manager ADM Capital. The purpose was to establish an innovative philanthropic vehicle for the ADM Capital partners but also for others wanting to give effectively and securely in Asia in two areas: children at risk and the environment. Genasci now leads a team of eight with a clear focus on impact, em-ploying rigorous due diligence, providing strategic support and funding to 22 local non-profit organizations that work with some of Asia’s most marginalized children and to combat in-transigent environmental challenges facing the region.
- Over the past five years, ADMCF has guided philanthropic investments of US$7 million to provide more than 150,000 children with access to education, vocational training, health care, nutritional support and develop-ment programs. From this, ADMCF has also built innovative environmental initiatives in areas as diverse as China’s water crisis, Hong Kong’s air pollution, deforestation in Indonesia and marine conservation in Vietnam. Before working in the non-profit sector, Lisa reported for the Associated Press from New York and Brazil. Her articles have appeared in most leading U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald. Lisa holds a BA degree with High Honors from Smith College and an LLM in Human Rights Law from Hong Kong University.
- Yu Xiaomin, Member
- Yu Xiaomin is an associate professor at School of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in social sciences from the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in 2006. Her primary research interests include social innovation and social enterprise, civil society, corporate social responsibility, social development, and labor studies. Her publications have appeared in a variety of academic journals, such as the Journal of Business Ethics, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Social Enterprise Journal and the China Journal of Social Work. She is currently member of the Editorial Board of the Social Enterprise Journal.
Consultant Team
- Elisabeth Hallett
- Elisabeth has lived in China on and off since 1981. Her first experience was as a university teacher in Xiangtan, Hunan province, and in the 1990s she worked in Beijing as a language consultant for the Foreign Languages Press and CCTV. More recent work has been senior editor for MWH, a multinational water engineering company in Beijing. She is currently part of the editorial team of a Chinese-English dictionary being compiled by the Oxford University Press. She has just completed two parts of a Master’s course in Education for Sustainability with the London South Bank University in which she focused her research on the development of a Beijing NGO. Elisabeth enjoys writing and reads widely.
- Joshua Halpern
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Originally from New York, Joshua has lived and worked in Europe, Central America and now Beijing, China. In Spain, he worked as an academic advisor for the Fulbright commission and founded Idiomarts Education, S.L., which provides language education services through theater, film, juggling, painting, magic and music for young adults and professionals in Madrid. He has taught English through drama at the TASIS England school summer programs and was a guest communications lecturer for law students at Charles University, Czech Republic. While managing a USAID scholarship project at The Center for Intercultural Education and Development (CIED) at Georgetown University, Josh used theater exercises to help prepare rural community leaders from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti for long-term technical training in the United States. He has led community service summer programs in Costa Rica and managed the Latino youth life-skills programs for Identity, Inc. throughout Maryland, USA. He is also a founding member of the Beijiing Improv Troupe.
Currently he is the Director of Program Development for China Prep, LLC, a company dedicated to providing dynamic experiences in China for US high school students. Joshua holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in Theater and English, a TEFL certificate from Cambridge University, and a graduate certificate in Business Administration from Georgetown University. He is currently working toward his dual-MBA degree from INSEAD and Tsinghua University. In his spare time, Joshua enjoys playing five-a-side football, skiing, tennis and travelling anywhere he hasn’t been before. He believes that theatre is undervalued as a tool for the healthy and sustainable growth of organisations and societies as a whole.
