Vishakha N. Desai

Vishakha N. Desai is president and CEO of the Asia Society, an international educational organization dedicated to strengthening connections between the peoples of Asia and the United States. She is a frequent speaker and participant at major conferences around the world addressing business, policy and cultural issues.
    Dr. Desai is widely recognized as a leader in the museum field for developing dynamic presentations of contemporary works by Asian and Asian American artists and for conceiving innovative exhibitions of traditional Asian art within strong cultural contexts. A noted scholar, she has published extensively on traditional and contemporary arts and has served as an advisor and juror for major international projects and institutions in the U.S., Europe and Asia. She has also lectured widely to business and foreign policy audiences on topics ranging from the role of culture in changing Asian.
    Prior to joining the Asia Society in 1990, Dr. Desai was a curator at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She has also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston University and Columbia University. She received her B.A. in political science from Bombay University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian Art History from the University of Michigan.
    The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Dr. Desai serves on the boards of The Brookings Institution, Citizens for NYC, and the New York City Advisory Commission for Cultural Affairs. She served as the President of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) in 1998-99, and was on the Board from 1995-2000. She has also served on the Boards of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics), the South Asian Council of the Association of Asian Studies, the College Art Association, ArtTable, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.
    Dr. Desai is married to Robert B. Oxnam, a China scholar, who was the Asia Society’s president from 1981 to 1992.