Derek Van Powell is a Vietnamese-born community leader, executive, and engineer whose work centers on documenting the history of Amerasians and pressing for their recognition. He is Executive Board Chair of The Amerasian Coalition, a nonprofit that advances identity, inclusion, inheritance, and justice for Amerasians and their families. He is also the producer of Homecoming: Unfinished, a documentary on the Amerasian experience funded by the California Arts Council. Told through Amerasians and their mothers, fathers, siblings, and children, the film looks at where the community stands decades after the 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act.

Powell’s research focuses on the government record behind Amerasian immigration. He reviews the evidence on the 1982 Amerasian Immigration Act and the 1987 Homecoming Act to separate figures that can be documented from estimates that have been repeated until they read as fact. He brings this work to the public through community education programs at the Bowers Museum. He also serves as Executive Director of PeaceBuildingOC, which works toward reconciliation within Orange County’s Vietnamese community, and as Board Treasurer of Le Ly Hayslip’s Global Village Foundation.

The grandson of a South Vietnamese Air Force pilot and the son of a 22-year U.S. Air Force veteran, Powell served as a U.S. Air Force officer in satellite integration. He then spent 30 years leading content supply chain operations at Warner Bros. and Sony and advising media companies as a strategy consultant at Deloitte and Altman Solon. Named an LA Times Business Visionary in Entertainment, he currently leads M&A integration at Cineverse. He holds a BS in Astronautical Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and an MBA from UC Irvine, and completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.