Anne Tsai Bennett has two decades of professional experience working on international democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) issues, with an emphasis on China. She is the founder of High Ridge Strategies LLC, a strategic advisory consultancy working primarily with NGOs focused on DRG issues around the world.

Prior to establishing her consulting practice in 2019, Tsai Bennett served for five years in the US Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s 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 US$500 million. As the China Team Lead, she led the strategic planning and monitoring of DRL’s China programs, one of the bureau’s largest country program portfolios.  Previously, she 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. She is based in Washington, DC.

Tsai Bennett graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor of art’s degree, cum laude, in East Asian Studies.