Bijan R. Kian

Member, Board of Directors
Export-Import Bank of the United States

Bijan R. Kian of California serves as a member of the board of directors and as chairman of the Audit Committee of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), the official export credit Agency of the United States.  Director Kian’s markets of focus and interest are the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus.  In addition, Director Kian focuses on the promotion of trade finance for the Services industry by highlighting the unique contributions and value of a wide range of Services created by some of the brightest of American minds.

Kian is currently serving in his second term of office at Ex-Im Bank. He was first nominated by the President of the United States on July 20, 2006 and confirmed by the United States Senate on September 29, 2006.  He was re-nominated by the President, and confirmed by the United States Senate for a second time in August 2007. His term of office expires in January 2011.

He is the former director of the State of California Office of Foreign Investment where he oversaw the attraction, expansion, and retention of the State’s $92 billion portfolio of foreign investment and the operation of the overseas offices of the State of California in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In that role, he was the first Iranian American to hold elected or appointed statewide office in the United States. He is also a former member of the California Governor’s Economic Development Advisory Council and a former Board Member of the State of California Housing Finance Agency.

He is an internationally recognized professional banker, business executive, educator, and civic leader with over 30 years of experience in transactional and operational areas of domestic and international banking, global business operations and management. He has served in senior executive roles in corporate planning, finance and operations both as an executive officer and as a board member or chairman for corporations and financial institutions.

Kian formerly served as an Adjunct Professor of Finance on the faculty of California State University, Fullerton and as Executive Director of the California Center for Commercial Diplomacy at California State University, Dominguez Hills.  He graduated with honors from Brighton University in Sussex, United Kingdom in 1979. He continued his education at Oxford  University  where he has studied political philosophy and at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he completed the program for Senior Executives in National and International Security.

Page updated: February 13, 2009