Jamie Choi, the programme director for Greenpeace East Asia, has joined Tara, a newly formed non-profit organisation that aims to accelerate the energy transition in Asia.
Tara was formed at the start of this year as the new regranting platform of international non-profit European Climate Foundation (ECF). It was born out of the merger of the Southeast Asia programme of the International Forum for Energy (IFE) and the South, Southeast and East Asia programme of the Pool Fund for International Energy (PIE).
Choi joins Tara as managing director.
Tara’s mission is to achieve prosperity, clean air and a safe climate, and to accelerate the transition to sustainable, clean energy across South, Southeast and East Asia.
“I decided to join Tara because I am ready and eager to do my part to accelerate the energy transition across Asia,” Choi said in an email to contacts.
Choi’s appointment is part of Tara’s development as an independent, local entity, the organisation told Eco-Business in a statement. Since the beginning of the year, Tara has been assembling a team of local advisers, and has a commitment to local leadership, it said.
Choi leaves Greenpeace after almost six years with the environmental campaign group, where in the last two years she was responsible for strategic programme direction and management of 160 staff across Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea.
She has worked for Greenpeace over two stints, her first spell spanning six years as a campaigner covering topics including electronic waste and industrial water pollution.
Over a 16-year career with NGOs, the Korean also worked for online activism network Avaaz in New York and as a consultant to Save the Children helping North Korean Refugees in China. She has also had stints at political campaigning group MoveOn and the Fund for Public Interest Research in the United States.
