Julia Gouw, a respected Los Angeles businesswoman and friend of UCLA who was the featured speaker at the UCLA International Institute’s 2015 commencement ceremony, has made a gift of $100,000 to the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) to support the center’s Indonesian Studies Program.
Said Gouw, a native of Indonesia, “I am thrilled to be able to support education and research of the highest quality on my homeland.”
The Indonesian Studies Program, in conjunction with CSEAS and UCLA’s humanities and social science divisions, sponsors lectures on recent scholarly research on Indonesia, organizes film screenings, arranges visits by prominent international figures and hosts cultural events. Ms. Gouw’s gift will be used to sustain these programs as well as to fund innovative conferences and underwrite travel grants for UCLA undergraduate and graduate students to conduct research in Indonesia.
CSEAS director and historian George Dutton said, “The Center for Southeast Asian Studies is fortunate to have found a donor as enthusiastic about the study of Indonesia as we are. Julia Gouw’s gift is enabling our Indonesian Studies Program to continue to grow and thrive at a time when Indonesia is becoming an ever more important, yet still understudied, nation.”
Gouw served as president and chief operating officer of East West Bancorp, one of the 30 largest publicly traded banks in the nation, from 2009 to 2016. Named five times by American Banker magazine as one of the “25 Most Powerful Women in Banking,” Gouw has also twice received the Los Angeles Business Journal’s “Women Making a Difference” award. Among other honors, she has been named one of “L.A.’s Top Women in Finance” by the Los Angeles Business Journal and Philanthropist of the Year by the National Association of Women Business Owners in Los Angeles.
Gouw's gift is part of the $4.2 billion UCLA Centennial Campaign, which is scheduled to conclude in December 2019 during UCLA’s 100th anniversary year.
Learn more in the original story published by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
