Eurasia Foundation Welcomes Four New Trustees
Eurasia Foundation is delighted to announce that four distinguished professionals have joined our board of trustees. Anne Aarnes, Eric Boyle, Shanthi Kalathil, and Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili bring decades of expertise in the democracy and governance sector to our organization. Please join us in welcoming them to Eurasia Foundation!
Anne Aarnes is a distinguished retired Foreign Service officer who concluded her 45-year career with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2015. She served as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Asia and previously held the positions of Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East and the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs. She was a faculty member at the National War College from 2010 to 2012. Aarnes received the President’s Distinguished Service Award in 2011 and the USAID Administrator’s Distinguished Career Service Award upon her retirement. Her overseas assignments included leadership positions as USAID Mission Director for Pakistan, Jordan, and Central Asia during periods of conflict and great uncertainty. She also served as Deputy Director in Egypt and Bangladesh. In her posting to Ukraine from 1994-1997, Aarnes led strategic planning and budget management for USAID assistance to Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
Eric Boyle is Senior Vice President for Business Development at ICF. He has led efforts to define and execute business development strategies and build growth organizations. He also brings over 20 years of experience working globally, including collaborations in Europe, South-East Asia, China, Africa, Latin America, and Eurasia. His passions include responsive governance, citizen and customer engagement, and responsible use of technology. He speaks Russian fluently and is conversant in Ukrainian, German, Armenian, and Kyrgyz.
Shanthi Kalathil is a distinguished advisor, consultant, and speaker specializing in national security, democratic resilience, and strategic competition in the information age. In her previous role as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights at the National Security Council under President Biden, she oversaw the organization of the President’s inaugural Summit for Democracy and the development of the first U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, among other key initiatives. Before joining the Biden Administration, Kalathil served as senior director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she examined authoritarian challenges to democracy in the information age. Her career spans key positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the World Bank, and other international affairs organizations.
Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili is the founding director of the Center for Governance and Markets and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a contributing editor at The National Interest magazine. Prospect Magazine recognized her as one of the world’s top thinkers. At the University of Pittsburgh, she received the Donald Goldstein Professor of the Year Award, Sheth Distinguished Faculty Award for International Achievement, and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Public Service Award. In the policy world, she served as a democracy and governance officer for USAID in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and worked as a senior researcher for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit in Kabul. Other policy work includes service for the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Defense, the United Nations Development Program, UNICEF, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Eurasia Foundation is also pleased to announce that Leif Ulstrup, founder of Primehook Technologies, has assumed the role of vice chair, succeeding the Honorable Richard L. Morningstar. Trustees Susan Reichle, president and CEO of IYF, and the Honorable Mary Burce Warlick, former U.S. Ambassador to Serbia and Senior Foreign Service Officer, concluded their terms and stepped down from the board. We would like to thank these trustees for their leadership, generosity, and dedication to our mission!