Anne Tsai Bennett

Chief of Staff

Anne Tsai Bennett became Chief of Staff of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in March 2022. She brings over two decades of program and policy experience and leadership in international democracy, human rights, and governance.

Most recently, Ms. Tsai Bennett provided strategic advice primarily to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on democracy and human rights issues around the world through her consultancy, High Ridge Strategies. Prior to establishing her consulting practice in 2019, she served for five years in the US Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) Office of Global Programs, where she was the deputy office director from 2016 to 2019, and the China team lead from 2014 to 2016. As deputy director, she helped lead a 60-person office overseeing DRL’s approximately 400 US government foreign-assistance funded programs around the world in partnership with over 300 NGOs, totaling approximately 500 million dollars. As the China team lead, she oversaw the strategic planning and monitoring of DRL’s China programs, one of the bureau’s largest country program portfolios.

Previously, Ms. Tsai Bennett spent nearly a decade working on democracy and governance programs with the National Democratic Institute, and prior to that worked on China human rights and rule of law issues as one of the first professional staff members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Early in her career she was an investment banking analyst with Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong.

Ms. Tsai Bennett graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies. She is also a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. She is based in Washington, DC with her husband and son.