The East-West Center Board of Governors announced Friday that Richard Vuylsteke, an East-West Center alumnus “with extensive experience throughout the Asia-Pacific region,” has been named as the next president of the institution.

Vuylsteke, says a press release, has been president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong for the past eight years.

He previously served as president of the American Chamber in Taipei, editor-in-chief of the Taiwan Review and area studies coordinator for the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute in Taipei.

Vuylsteke was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Rajasthan, India.

He earned his Ph.D. in Asian and Western Social and Political Philosophy at the University of Hawaii Manoa.

Vuylsteke succeeds Charles Morrison, who announced his retirement last year but will continue to serve until Vuylsteke arrives, perhaps early in 2017.

The East-West Center, says the center, “promotes better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific through cooperative study, research, and dialogue.”