Founding Philanthropic Partners

Clara Wu Tsai is a businesswoman and philanthropist. Ms. Wu Tsai is the owner of the WNBA’s New York Liberty and the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets. As Vice Chair of BSE Global, the teams’ parent company, she oversees all matters relating to fan development and community engagement across Brooklyn.

Ms. Wu Tsai pursues philanthropic investments across the arts, science, and social justice spaces. She is the founder of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation. In the science and technology field, the foundation supports the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University and the Wu Tsai Institute at Yale University both of which work to advance understanding of human cognition. In 2020, Ms. Wu Tsai founded the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, which works across six universities to bring together world-class talent to advance the science of human performance.

She established the Social Justice Fund in 2020 to catalyze economic mobility in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of the REFORM Alliance, which seeks to reform the criminal justice system.

Ms. Wu Tsai serves on the Boards of Trustees for Stanford University, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington. She was an executive producer of Into the Okavango, a 2018 conservation documentary, Blue Bayou, a 2021 drama, and Unfinished Business, a 2022 documentary about the WNBA. She is currently producing Werner Herzog’s feature film Bucking Fastard, about inseparable sisters played by Kate and Rooney Mara.

Previously, Ms. Wu Tsai was General Manager of the Hong Kong operations of Taobao, China’s largest online shopping website, and a Vice President at American Express in New York and Hong Kong. Ms. Wu Tsai holds a B.A. in International Relations, and a M.A. in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, and a M.B.A. from Harvard University.

Joe Tsai is a co-founder and executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group, a global Internet technology company based in China. His career at Alibaba spans over 20 years, during which he was the company’s chief financial officer and oversaw strategic investments. Tsai serves on the boards of directors of Alibaba Group and its financial services affiliate, Ant Group.

Tsai is Governor of the Brooklyn Nets (NBA) and New York Liberty (WNBA), and is Chairman of the teams’ home arena Barclays Center. He owns two professional indoor lacrosse teams, based in San Diego and Las Vegas, respectively, in the National Lacrosse League. Tsai also has investments in the outdoor professional lacrosse league, Premier Lacrosse League, and Los Angeles FC of Major League Soccer.

Through the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, Tsai and his wife Clara Wu Tsai are active philanthropists supporting initiatives in education, research, criminal justice reform, economic mobility, the arts and humanitarian relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tsai is a founding board member of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), a non-profit launched in 2021 that provides resources to Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities to mobilize against hate and discrimination and build the infrastructure to improve AAPI advocacy, power and representation.

Tsai is a member of the J.P. Morgan International Council, EXOR Partners Council, and International Advisory Council of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. He is a trustee of The Lawrenceville School.

Prior to founding Alibaba Group, Tsai practiced tax law as an associate with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York from 1990 to 1993 and was responsible for Asian private equity investments for Investor AB of Sweden’s Wallenberg family from 1995 to 1999. He is a graduate of Yale College (BA ’86) and Yale Law School (JD ’90).