Marshall Pacific Rim Business Forum

Planning Committee

Judy Tin May Thein Ko
CEO/Executive Director
Asia21 MJ Co. Ltd.
Yangon, Myanmar

Asia21 MJ Co. Ltd. is a locally registered company providing consulting, logistic (i.e. visits to Myanmar for meetings, conferences, seminars, workshops) and office support services to NGOs, Think Tanks and other related organizations since 2011.

Judy Ko is the Country Director for DeBoer Fellowship, the first ever fellowship program in Myanmar. She is also BowerGroupAsia’s country managing director for Myanmar. She brings a wide range of experience to her role at BGA, having worked in diplomacy, the non-profit sector and consultancy in both Myanmar and the United States. Few can navigate the fast developing ebbs and flows in a rapidly changing like Judy. She knows everyone on every side of the political spectrum. She served for nearly two decades at the U.S. Embassy in Yangon and is well versed on Myanmar’s key players and political and economic issues. Judy began her career as an educator, but in 1984, she moved on to the public sector when she served as a foreign correspondent for Myanmar’s Ministry of Hotel and Tourism. She soon left the Ministry for the Swedish Consul-General and served with in a leading role for a U.S. Agency for International Development project liaising with Myanmar’s Ministry of Cooperatives.

In the fateful year of 1988, Judy joined the U.S. Embassy in Yangon and served for two decades in a variety of capacities. First, she served as an economic specialist, analysing and reporting on trends and developments in Myanmar. Next, Judy transitioned to serve as a political specialist, where she fostered ties with key players in Myanmar and analysed the country’s political, economic and social developments. While working at the U.S. Embassy, Judy received multiple prestigious awards, including the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service National of the Year Award and the Appreciation Award for Loyal and Courageous Service.

In 2005, Judy left Myanmar for the United States, where she worked at the National Endowment for Democracy as a Reagan-Fascall Democracy Fellow and a fellow associate for the International Forum for Democratic Studies. Judy also developed a variety of grant programs for Virginia-based NGO Global Community Service Foundation (GCSF) before settling back in Yangon to implement the successful GCSF project. Judy received her Master of Science degree F1 in Mathematics and her Bachelor of Science from the Rangoon Arts & Science University in Myanmar.