GET TO KNOW CARMILLE LIM, VICE PRESIDENT AT THE PACIFIC COUNCIL

Carmille Lim (right) serves as a panelist on a legislative roundtable hosted by Civil Beat at the Hawaii State Capitol.

Carmille Lim has been vice president at the Pacific Council for a year, guiding our external affairs and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across everything we do. Carmille has a background in public policy and nonprofit management, the perfect combination to lead the Pacific Council as a member of the Executive Team.

Read more about Carmille below!

What drew you to the Pacific Council?

I am so inspired by our founders’ vision in establishing Los Angeles as a key player in global discourse beyond the Washington-New York corridor. Since California is the world’s fifth-largest economy and LA is the most diverse city along the West Coast, I truly believe in LA’s potential to fulfill this vision. In addition to this, I wanted the opportunity to work directly with the Pacific Council’s executive director, Jennifer Faust. A Council member suggested we meet, and upon our first meeting, we had an instant connection. Both of us had the shared experience of serving as executive directors, we listened to similar podcasts, and had similar management and life philosophies, amongst other things. I admired her outlook on life, her genuine desire to pay-it-forward with staff and to grow the next generation of leaders—something I identified with. I knew then I wanted to work with her and learn from her. She inspired me greatly in our first meeting and continues to inspire me today.  

Are there any particular experiences from your career up to this point that have really shaped your professional outlook?

My professional career has been largely in nonprofit management and government relations in Hawaii—including a particularly memorable stint as a legislative aid with the Chamber of Commerce. But I have spent my free time hovering in and out of the creative, entrepreneurial, and startup spaces—even serving on the board of Hawaii’s first social entrepreneurship organization. One of my favorite periods was when I lived with people in these industries—we had whiteboards everywhere, our dining table was a co-working space, and we’d craft business plans, code apps, and draft bills and policy solutions until the roosters crowed at daybreak. Our peer group had techies, co-founders, real estate investors, angel investors, a physicist, politicos, you name it. We all liked to think of ourselves as inventors in one way or another.

What international policy areas are you most interested in and why?

Having grown up along the Pacific Rim (Japan, Washington state, SoCal, and Hawaii), my primary regional interest relates to the Asia-Pacific region, and I’m particularly concerned about the environmental impact on the Polynesian islands and their indigenous population, as well the impact of our ocean’s health on the Pacific Rim ecosystem.

Beyond that, my primary policy interests are around economics, trade, and commerce. So much so, that my MPP focus is centered on international economics.

At the Pacific Council, not only am I focused on bringing the intersection of business and policy to life, but I am also tasked with overseeing the execution of the Council’s DEI plan and incorporating innovative approaches to global diplomacy into our programming.

Our vision is to become a pioneer in DEI and innovation in the international policy community—an exciting challenge to say the least.

What are you most looking forward to in the year ahead?

We are experimenting with so many things at the Pacific Council, it’s hard to name just one thing I’m excited about. Like many of our members, with the eventual return to normalcy, I am looking forward to traveling again! The Pacific Council team will soon be resurrecting its beloved trips program, with late 2021 delegations in the works.

We are also incubating a few ideas including a program that cultivates emerging local-to-global leaders by serving as a project accelerator and profile-builder for people working on global policy issues in non-traditional places around the country.