Chantale Wong
Official portrait, 2022
U.S. Director of the Asian Development Bank
Assumed office
February 23, 2022
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byJason Myung-Ik Chung
Personal details
Born
Chantale Yokmin Wong
EducationUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (BS)
University of California, Berkeley (MS)
Harvard Kennedy School (MPA)

Chantale Yokmin Wong is the current United States Director of the Asian Development Bank, with the rank of ambassador. Wong is the first out lesbian and the first out LGBTQ person of color to receive the rank of US ambassador.[1][2]

Early life

As a child, Wong's grandmother "smuggled" her from Shanghai to Hong Kong. She then went to boarding school on the island of Macau. Wong attended middle school in Okinawa, Japan, high school at Academy of Our Lady of Guam in Hagåtña, Guam where she lived with her aunt, uncle, and cousin.[3] In 1980, she received a BS in civil engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and, in 1982, an MS in environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She received an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School in 1988.[4]

Government service

She served in a number of positions in the US government. Under Barack Obama, she served as vice president for administration and finance, and CFO, at the Millennium Challenge Corporation from 2011 to 2014. Previously, she was budget director at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2011–12, acting budget director at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and as the chief of staff to the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Under Bill Clinton, Wong represented the United States on the board of directors of the Asian Development Bank.[4]

In 1989, Wong co-founded the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership.[5]

Nomination to the Asian Development Bank

On July 2, 2021, Wong was nominated by President Joe Biden to be the next director of the Asian Development Bank.[6] The Senate's Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on her nomination on October 26, 2021. On December 15, 2021, the committee voted to report her nomination favorably to the Senate floor. On February 8, 2022, the entire Senate moved to confirm Wong's nomination in a vote of 66–31.[7] Wong was sworn in by Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on February 23, 2022.[8]

References

  1. ↑ "Biden nominates first out lesbian to ambassador-level post". NBC News. 12 July 2021. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  2. ↑ "In a First, Asian-American Lesbian Confirmed to Ambassador-Level Post". www.advocate.com. 2022-02-08. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  3. ↑ "From Guam to Washington: Our alumna makes the world a better place". Global Sisters Report (a project of National Catholic Reporter). 2021-11-09. Retrieved 2022-02-08.
  4. 1 2 "Wong LinkedIn page". Retrieved 2022-02-08.
  5. ↑ "Leadership Team | Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership". CAPAL. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  6. ↑ "President Biden Announces Seven Key Nominations". The White House. 2 July 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  7. ↑ "On the Nomination (Confirmation: Chantale Yokmin Wong, of the District of Columbia, to be United States Director of the Asian Development Bank)". US Senate. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  8. ↑ Ou, Howard [@HowardOu46] (February 23, 2022). "Chantale Wong was sworn in earlier today by @SecYellen as U.S. Director of the Asian Development Bank @ADB_HQ" (Tweet). Retrieved 2022-03-13 – via Twitter.
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