Matt is a seasoned advocate, activist, advisor and thought leader in the social justice, social change and citizenship spaces. He has more than three-decades of local, state, national and international service; managing projects and programs, leading organizations, building alliances and earning movements.
Known as a transformative and generative thinker, Matt is an outstanding steward of strategy and staff, translating vision into reality at scale. He is an adept systems thinker with high ambiguity tolerance, rendering him an exceptionally effective navigator of complexity. He has a demonstrated track record of conceptualizing and implementing high impact grantmaking strategies, characterized by innovative partnership and civic engagement.
Currently, Matt is a principal education and engagement consultant to PBS Hawai’i, ŌLELO Community Media and the CASE Center for Student Entrepreneurship at Punahou School on digital storytelling, narrative therapy, student voice and the voices of marginalized communities. He is also consulting Executive Director of the Hawaii-based service dog training organization, Hawai’i FiDo Service Dogs. He provides strategic advisory to TrustCircle, an emerging Social Emotional Learning platform as well as to Vanta Leagues, a moderated, developmental e-sports platform for adolescents.
Before returning to the islands, Matt served for 2 years, first as Lead Consultant for youth engagement and subsequently as inaugural President of the premier education initiative of the Emerson Collective, Oakland-based, XQ Institute. Leading up to his service with Emerson, Matt was inaugural leader and administrator of two highly successful, private philanthropies (HDI, The Learning Coalition); Director on the National Security Council (NSC) – Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs; Senior consultant with the US Department of State (US Mission to the United Nations), and the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS) – the UN’s humanitarian assistance logistics agency; Senior Director at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) - the State of Hawaii’s indigenous advocacy and grantmaking agency; Director at Caspian Securities – the first emerging market-only investment bank; Student leader of a global grassroots movement in support of Tiananmen Square uprising; Founder of first student led, internet-based, global human rights network in the world -- the Student Human Rights Exchange (SHARE); and, Founding/Managing Partner of The Greenhouse, the first double bottom-line, ecosystem economics-based, high-tech incubator in Hawaii.
Over the years, his portfolio, policy and programmatic responsibilities have spanned a wide array of sectors. He has distinguished himself in recent years in the domains of public education, civic engagement and human rights with a long history in national security, multi-lateral affairs, democratic governance, international diplomacy, humanitarian assistance, civil military affairs, military psychological operations, religious freedom, and landmine eradication.
Matt holds a BA from Tufts University in Art History, a certificate in multicultural communications from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, and an MPA from the JFK School of Government at Harvard.
Outside of his professional pursuits, Matt participates in working groups on civil-military affairs and the delivery of humanitarian assistance in complex emergencies. He is a member of the National Policy Roundtable, sits on a handful of Hawaii-based, non-profit boards.
I met Sherman in his first Experimental College course at Tufts University, for a two-day immersive terrorism simulation where, according to Sherman, I learned I didn’t know how to be terrorist right. That’s all it took and I became a staunch Teichman advocate and eventually a loyal ambassador for EPIIC. Years later, it was Sherman’s advocacy that helped me secure my first Reebok grant to launch SHARE. To this day, I think of Sherman as my ‘hānai’ father. Can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do for him.