Bill Ramirez to receive TEI president's award.

• Position: Tax Executives Institute

On August 11, 2009, the Board of Directors of Tax Executives Institute voted to grant its President's Award to William E. Ramirez of the Asia Chapter. The award is reserved for recognition of long-term meritorious service to the Institute beyond the chapter level. Mr. Ramirez's nomination cited his unstinting leadership role in forming two Institute chapters outside North America.

Mr. Ramirez membership with TEI coincided with the formation of the Institute's first chapter outside North America. When the European Chapter was formed in 1999--the culmination of a two-year effort--he was a charter member and served on the chapter's first board of directors. He became Chapter Secretary in 2000 and s erved until 2002, when he became First Vice President. By the time his employer transferred him from the company's Switzerland office to Hong Kong in 2003, the European Chapter had grown from 50 to 120 members.

"Bill was not content to be a 'founding father' of one chapter," TEI President Neil D. Traubenberg noted. "So he set out to form a chapter in Asia."

The genesis for the Asia Chapter was an organizational meeting in November 2003 that was held in conjunction with Baker & McKenzie's Asia Pacific Tax Conference in Vietnam; the next meeting, which Mr. Ramirez and others helped organize in February 2005, attracted 109 registrants from China, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and the United States. One year later...