Christopher G. Oechsli
Christopher G. Oechsli is President and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies and serves on the Board of Directors. He leads Atlantic’s grantmaking through its four programme areas and Founding Chairman grants in its seven geographies. His responsibilities include working with the Board to disburse Atlantic’s remaining endowment, completing active grantmaking by 2016 and closing its doors by 2020.
Mr. Oechsli has over 30 years of experience in international business, law, philanthropy and policy development in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. He served as Atlantic’s Interim President and CEO from June-September 2011. Mr. Oechsli recently was Associate Fellow and Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a multi-issue think tank based in Washington, D.C. From 2007 to 2009, he served as Counsel to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, whom he advised on legislation and a range of domestic and international issues.
Mr. Oechsli was a senior staff member at The Atlantic Philanthropies and related companies for 17 years. He previously served as Atlantic’s Population Health Programme Director from 2000 to 2005, during which time he developed and directed Atlantic’s work to strengthen the health systems in Viet Nam and South Africa. He led the foundation’s development of higher education and rule-of-law initiatives in Viet Nam, South Africa, Australia and the U.S. and supported the Founding Chairman’s work in health, education and medical research in the U.S., Australia and Viet Nam. Beginning in 1990, Mr. Oechsli served as a director, counsel or chief executive of operating companies within the General Atlantic Group, an international investment subsidiary of the Atlantic Foundation.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Oechsli worked with private law firms in Seattle, Shanghai, San Francisco and Taipei. In 1985, he became the first resident visiting law professor from the United States in the People’s Republic of China, where he taught constitutional and commercial law at the East China Institute of Politics and Law in Shanghai.
He has recently served on the boards of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, Progressives United, Project on Middle East Democracy and The Washington Office on Latin America.
Mr. Oechsli is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles. Following studies in Chinese language at Georgetown University and graduate studies at Columbia University, he received an M.A. in Foreign Affairs and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.
