Gavin Tritt

Gavin Tritt joined Oberlin Shansi as Executive Director in January 2013. As Shansi Executive Director, Gavin is responsible for overseeing educational and cultural exchange programs in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and elsewhere in Asia. He is responsible for all aspects of the Oberlin Shansi mission, from strategic planning and strengthening institutional governance to supervision of programs, finances, and day-to-day operations

Before Oberlin Shansi, Gavin spent nearly 20 years with The Asia Foundation, an international development organization based in San Francisco. His last position with The Asia Foundation was as Country Representative for Cambodia. In that role, he provided leadership for all Asia Foundation programs, operations, and external relations in Cambodia, including work on governance and economic reform, promoting human rights, and combatting human trafficking. Gavin also served as Director of Governance Programs, Director of Books for Asia, Assistant Country Representative in the Philippines, and Economic Program Officer. As Director of the Books for Asia Program, he managed the acquisition of one million donated books annually, valued at $40 million, and their distribution to thousands of libraries in eighteen Asian countries.

Gavin holds a degree in East Asian Studies from Yale University and a Master of International Affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Following graduation from Yale he taught English at Hunan Medical University in Changsha, China and the Chinese University of Hong Kong as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow.