subscribe: Posts | Comments

You are currently viewing: Advisory Council

Advisory Council

IMG_5104 isabeau2 copy IMG_8035

Purpose: The Advisory Council consists of community leaders, friends and supporters of the Bay Area Tibetan community, and experts. These individuals collectively help TANC and its various  project through various ways including developing contacts, providing expertise in specific areas, bringing a new and different perspective, lending prestige to the project, and providing strategic input towards current and future direction of TANC.

Responsibilities: The primary function of this body is to give advice and support to the TANC Board and key project members. Members meet at least once a year and have the following responsibilities:

  • Review long range goals and annual objectives presented by TANC Board, provide feedback, and advice
  • Evaluate products, services, and programs offered by TANC. Provide feedback and advice
  • Review financial statements, work plans, and other key materials. Provide feedback and advice
  • Assist with the fundraising efforts of TANC
  • Spend a few hours consulting one-to-one with one or more Board and project members
  • Give expert advice on specific areas: real estate, legal compliance, funding, marketing, etc.

Term: Each member serves for a period of three years.


Current Advisory Council Members

Eva Herzer
Eva Herzer is an attorney and mediator in Albany, California. She has worked with the Tibet movement since 1887. She co-founded the International Committee of Lawyers, now known as the Tibet Justice Center and served as its president. She also co-founded the International Tibet Support Network and served on its first steering committee. She has advised the Tibetan Government in Exile and Tibetan NGOs at the United Nations, has published many articles on Tibet, conducted workshops in the Tibetan community on issues of autonomy and self-determination and has delivered talks on Tibet in the US, Europe and Asia.

Phurpa (Phil) LadenLa
Phurpa (Phil) LadenLa is a native of Darjeeling, where he received his early education at St Joseph’s College, North Point; and later, in the US, at University of New Hampshire (BS) and Stanford (MBA).  He has worked in the hi-tech industry, successively in engineering, sales and marketing; culminating in executive positions in the laser industry.  Subsequently, he ran his own photonics distribution business until retiring in 2008.  He served as Treaurer of BAFoT during its period of greatest ferment and activity in the early 90’s (Tibetan Resettlement Project; Conferences; and record Subscriber base).  He was a cofounder of TANC, office holder and board member.  He served as a member of the initial committee in the late 90’s that drew up the Founding Guidelines for the TCCNC as a project of TANC.

Julia Shepardson
Julia Shepardson worked in a Tibetan refugee settlement in Nepal. She was regional Director of the Tibetan US Resettlement Project in the San Francisco Bay Area and a founding board member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet.  She was executive director of Survivors International, a San Francisco organization for survivors of torture. She served as executive director of the America Nepal Medical Foundation and worked as an international interpreter for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal.

Pema Tashi
Pema Tashi completed his Shastri degree from the Tibetan Institute of Higher Studies in Varanasi, India, in 1980. In the same year, he volunteered to teach community school at the Tibetan Crafts Community (TCC), Tashi Jong in Himachal Pradesh. Later he joined the TCC administration as liaison for the community with various western aid organizations for 4 years before migrating to United States in 1985. Mr. Tashi also has seven years experience of working as Graduate Admissions Coordinator at Stanford University. He is also a former board member of the Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC). Mr. Tashi currently runs an import business based here in Bay Area.

Tenzin N. Tethong
Tenzin Tethong is Chair of the Committee of 100 for Tibet, and President of the Dalai Lama Foundation. He is Distinguished Fellow, Tibetan Studies Initiative, and a member of the Center for Compassion & Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University. He is a former Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New York and Washington, D.C., and former Chairman of the Kashag, the Cabinet of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A founding member of Sheja Magazine and the Tibetan Youth Congress, he was worked all his life with Tibetan exiles as a teacher, journalist and grassroots activist. He is the founder of key Tibet initiatives in the U.S. such as the Tibet Fund, Tibet House – New York, the International Campaign for Tibet, and the Dalai Lama Foundation.

Jigme Yugay
Jigme Yugay was born near Karze in Eastern Tibet. He spent his early years in Kalimpong and went to college at the St. Joseph’s in Darjeeling before immigrating to the US in 1975. Mr. Yugay was a founding member of Bay Area Friends of Tibet (BAFoT) and its first President. The organization under his leadership played a major role in welcoming and supporting the Tibetans who immigrated to the Bay Area under the U.S. Resettlement Project in the early nineties.