Board and Leadership
Milton Liu, Interim Executive Director
Milton Liu, a cancer survivor, is a writer/producer/director for film, television, transmedia and Web3. He co-founded Kulture Machine (the first production company listed in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Indie Film), producing Student Academy Award winner JESUS HENRY CHRIST and the feature FIREFLIES IN THE GARDEN starring Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe.
A Tribeca feature screenplay winner, Disney Feature Fellow and Fox TV Writing Fellow, Milton also created the web feature AWESOME ASIAN BAD GUYS, webseries JOHN HUGHES RUINED MY LIFE and short doc I HATE BIG PHONY. He most recently associate produced the features LUCKY GRANDMA and LOVE & BUSKING, produced the short FROM HERE with Jenna Ushkowitz and starring Samantha Futerman, and wrote the Web3 series MILO THE BORED APE.
Milton is the Interim Executive Director of the Asian American Media Alliance, the former Director of Programs & Artist Services at Visual Communications (LA Asian Pacific Film Festival), the former Executive Director of Giant Leap Media, member of the WGA/west and a Big Brother Mentor for the past six years.
Thu Nguyen, Chair
Executive Director, OCA National
Thu Nguyen (she/her) serves OCA National as its Executive Director. A graduate from Rice University with degrees in Chemistry and Sociology, Thu found her way into the nonprofit sector through organizing Asian American students on campus and bridging partnerships between student groups and local Houston community organizations. She curated the first Asian American student art gallery at Rice, which pioneered the university’s annual underground Asian American art exhibition. Before OCA, she freelanced for non-profits and Asian-owned start-ups to do community outreach and social media marketing.
In her capacity, Thu oversees storytelling, relationships, and operations for OCA. She brings a unique understanding of grassroots organizing and design to her work in managing grants and fundraisers. She serves as the Chair of the Asian American Media Alliance and sits on the diversity, equity, and inclusion council for Charter.
With her spare time, Thu focuses on the intersection of advocacy with small businesses. She works 5-9 in hospitality, cosmetology, and zine-making. You can find her exploring how to spacemake via thudawin.org.
Kavneet Singh, Vice Chair
Chair, SALDEF
Kavneet Singh is a Senior Manager with Kaiser Permanente where his responsibilities relate to Performance Management and Strategy Development. Singh has brought these skills to SALDEF, advising on strategy, advising on SALDEF’s interactive curriculum, “Sikhism 101 for Law Enforcement”, assisting in training local, state, and federal law enforcement officials about awareness and protocol, and addressing audiences about Sikhism, the Sikh American community, civil rights and diversity at regional and national forums.
Singh also serves as a member the Diversity Advisory Council for the Health Plan and on the Advisory Board of the Prison Religion Project at St. Marys College. He has been actively involved with various Sikh Youth Camps across the country over the past decade, and instructed students in Sikh history and Ethos at the El Sobrante Gurdwara.
Singh received his B.A. from the University of California – Berkeley.
Daniel Mayeda, Chair Emeritus
Daniel M. Mayeda is the Associate Director of the Documentary Film Legal Clinic at UCLA School of Law. Prior to this appointment, Dan practiced law for nearly 35 years, specializing in litigation involving the media and entertainment industries. He was a shareholder in the Los Angeles law firm of Leopold, Petrich and Smith, and is now an attorney with Ballard Spahr.
In 2021, Dan was elected Co-Chair of the Los Angeles County Citizens Redistricting Commission which is tasked with using 2020 Census data to draw new boundaries for the five supervisorial districts for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Aside from big city mayors, each Supervisor is the most powerful local elected official in the United States in terms of population represented (about two million each), resources controlled, and in some cases geographic territory covered. This will be the first time that a fully independent Commission will be undertaking the decennial redistricting process for Los Angeles County.
Dan has been a longtime advocate for accurate and sensitive depictions of Asian Americans in the media. He is a member of the Board of Directors of East West Players, the country's premiere Asian Pacific American theatre organization. Since 2000, Dan has helped lead a national multi-ethnic coalition of civil rights and media activism groups to advocate for greater diversity, equity and inclusion in Hollywood and in the media. He was Chair of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, and served on the national Diversity Advisory Council for Comcast Corporation.
Dan has written and spoken extensively on media, intellectual property and Asian American community issues. He has been an Adjunct Professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and has taught media courses at California State University, Los Angeles and California State University, Northridge.