Fil-Am business leader joins board of immigration think tank

Loida Nicolas-Lewis with President Barack Obama/ FACEBOOK PHOTO

WASHINGTON, DC — Filipino-American businesswoman Loida Nicolas-Lewis, chair and CEO of the investment firm TLC Beatrice, LLC, joined the board of trustees of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), the non-partisan immigration think tank announced on Tuesday, Feb. 25.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, chair of MPI’s board of trustees also announced that non-profit leader and journalist Louis Freedberg and former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner James W. Ziglar have joined the body along with Nicolas-Lewis

Lewis, a former general attorney in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, assumed leadership of the TLC Beatrice Foods business conglomerate after the death of her husband, noted African-American lawyer and entrepreneur Reginald F. Lewis, in 1993.

Two years later, after steering the company to $2 billion in revenue, she was named the most powerful female CEO in America by Working Woman magazine. A native of the Philippines, she is chair emeritus of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), which she helped found. Lewis is a co-founder of the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund (AALDEF), chair of the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation and founder and president of The Lewis College in the Philippines.

Dr. Freedberg is executive director of EdSource, a non-profit organization founded in 1977 that provides research and data on key education challenges in California and nationally. He was previously the founding director of California Watch, an innovative non-profit journalism venture. He spent more than a decade at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he was an award-winning reporter, Washington correspondent, columnist and member of the editorial board with a focus on immigration and education policies.
Former INS Commissioner Ziglar, who is an MPI senior fellow, previously served as an advisor to the MPI Board of Trustees. Prior to joining MPI, Ziglar was president and CEO of Cross Match Technologies. From 1998-2001, he served as Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. Senate, a position in which he served as the Senate’s chief operating officer, top protocol officer and chief law enforcement officer.
“We are delighted and honored that Loida Nicolas Lewis, Louis Freedberg and Jim Ziglar have joined the MPI board, and welcome the unique perspectives they bring to the Institute with their impressive backgrounds in business, philanthropy, journalism, non-profit leadership and administration of federal immigration functions,” said MPI President Demetrios G. Papademetriou.