Regina Yan

Biography

Regina Yan is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Washington, DC based Patient-centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), a healthcare research funding organization established by the US Congress. Prior to that, Ms. Yan served as the first COO at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the world’s most influential think tank in international economics. Ms. Yan is an expert in international development, nonprofit institutional building, board governance, and strategic partnership.

For over a decade, Ms. Yan worked for Eurasia Foundation (EF) and was its Executive Vice President. Ms. Yan directed EF’s general operations in more than a dozen countries and managed its special projects such as the economic education and research program, media viability fund, and the small business lending program. Working with key funding and institutional partners, she spearheaded the launch of these special projects into independent organizations such as the Economic Education and Research Consortium (EERC), which administers the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), and the Izmirlian-Eurasia Universal Credit Company. She also supervised the transformation of EF’s representative offices into independent local foundations. The five foundations in Russia, Central Asia, South Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova, plus Eurasia Foundation in the US, form the Eurasia Foundation Network. Ms. Yan established the first NGO Resource Center in western China providing consultation, training and funding support for community development organizations.

From 1992 to 2000, Ms. Yan held various executive positions at IREX, an international research and education organization, where she provided management oversight to IREX’s field operations in 22 countries and launched its programs in Asia. Prior to that, she managed international programs at the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. She has administered programs with Central/Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and the Middle East.

Ms. Yan is the Senior Adviser of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), a world class graduate economic program in Ukraine. She is a founding board member of the East Europe Foundation in Ukraine and Moldova, a senior advisor to the Eurasia Foundation, as well as a member of the National Committee of US-China Relations.

Ms. Yan received her B.A. from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington and her graduate degrees from the University of Hawaii.