Lin Gao

Goodwill Ambassador, Eisenhower Foundation

Lin Gao is a goodwill ambassador for the Eisenhower Foundation, a position she assumed in July 2022. In this capacity, Ms. Gao works to further the Foundation’s mission of reducing racial injustice, economic inequality, poverty and violent crime.

Before this role, she had been working at The Rockefeller Foundation since 2019 as a research specialist, where her primary role was to undertake review and analysis of innovation at the nexus of the Foundation’s focus areas and to develop network opportunities to ensure the Foundation’s resources are being leveraged. Prior to joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Ms. Gao had worked at the United Nations headquarters in New York as a researcher and interlocutor since 2015. She served as a high-level communications liaison between the UN, permanent missions to the UN, NGOs as well as regional, parliamentary and local government municipalities on economic, social and environmental development agendas. She was also involved in special projects with a key focus on the implementation and measurement of meeting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

As a Chinese native, Ms. Gao worked at Mundipharma’s Beijing office as a Government Affairs & Public Relations manager from 2011 to 2014, working closely with the then Chinese Ministry of Health (MOH), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA). Ms. Gao is also an experienced art law/art provenance researcher, specializing in the application of data and technological tools to prevent the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property.

Ms. Gao holds a U.S. bachelor’s degree in communications and an MA in art business. She speaks Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic.

Ms. Gao is currently a consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). She has served on the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations Board of Advisors since 2020. She was also a Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy (AILA) international fellow in 2020, the Gold Winner of the President’s Volunteer Service Award issued by the White House in 2015 and the Grand Winner of the Martin Luther King Award issued by the U.S. Embassy in Japan in 2008.