Elizabeth Knup is the regional director for China at the Ford Foundation. She oversees the foundation’s grantmaking and programming related to China from the foundation’s office in Beijing. Prior to joining Ford in 2013, she served simultaneously as Chief Representative of Pearson PLC, one of the world’s foremost education and publishing companies, and as President of Pearson Education in China
Having dedicated her career to developing stronger ties between China and the rest of the world in the education, nonprofit, and business sectors, Knup started out at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations where, from 1988-1998, she facilitated dialogue and exchange focused on a range of issues central to the U.S.-China relationship. In 1998, she moved to Nanjing and served as the American co-director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, overseeing the establishment of the center’s Institute for International Relations and a summer immersion Chinese language program. Later, she joined Kamsky Associates, a business strategy and investment advisory firm in Beijing, as Managing Director.
Knup is on the board of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She has served as a member of the board of numerous nonprofits including the Lingnan Foundation, the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the American Chamber of Commerce in the People’s Republic of China, and two Chinese NGOs: the Capacity Building Assessment Center (CBAC) and Global Environment Institute (GEI).
Knup has a Master’s degree from the University of Michigan’s Center for Chinese Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Middlebury College.
