Remembering Steve Umemoto - A Mentor, Colleague, and Champion for Children: by Kul Gautam

Dear friends,

Further to my earlier message on the passing of our dear colleague Steve Umemoto, I attach herewith a tribute to him. Also attached is a picture in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa from our memorable visit there in April 2015.

Missing Steve deeply and thinking of his dear wife Diane and his lovely daughters Kim and Nicole and their families at this hour of grief.

Kul

Remembering Steve Umemoto - Potala Palace in Lhasa,  April 2015

Steve Umemoto, a distinguished UNICEF colleague whose career spanned nearly four decades - from the late 1960s to the early 2000s - passed away on March 2, 2026. Throughout those years, he served the organization and its mission with quiet distinction, intellectual rigor, and deep commitment to improving the lives of children around the world. To many of us in the UNICEF family, he was not only an exemplary professional but also a trusted mentor, wise counselor, and valued friend.

Steve was both a dear friend and a mentor of mine for half a century, going back to the mid-1970s. I first met him at UNICEF EAPRO in Bangkok, where he served as Regional Planning Officer while I was then a newly minted Programme Officer in Jakarta, Indonesia. As he had earlier served as Planning Officer in Indonesia, Steve was a rich source of knowledge about Indonesia as well as the wider Southeast Asian region.

At various regional meetings in Bangkok, I quickly came to see Steve as a fountain of knowledge about UNICEF-supported programmes across the Asia-Pacific region and globally. He seemed to know many of the leading development planners and thinkers in the region. He maintained a roster of potential consultants and advisers in a wide range of fields relevant to UNICEF’s work. In those days - well before the arrival of the internet, Google search, not to speak of AI - his rolodex of experienced development planners and creative thinkers was truly phenomenal.

Steve was not only knowledgeable about field realities and the socio-cultural and political sensitivities in the countries where UNICEF worked, but he was also very up to date with the latest thinking and developments at UNICEF Headquarters in New York. I recall a popular belief in the late 1970s and 1980s that folks at UNICEF EAPRO in Bangkok knew about what was happening at UNICEF HQ in New York even before the staff in New York did. Part of the reason for that was Steve’s excellent network of contacts at NYHQ in those days.

Steve had started his UNICEF career in 1967 at the “Front Office” (the Office of the Executive Director) at New York Headquarters, where he got to personally know and interact with many of UNICEF’s top leaders of the time. Interestingly, through a fortuitous circumstance, Steve was interviewed for a UNICEF job while he was still a graduate student at Cornell University and was offered a P-2 post as Assistant Planning Officer in a small “Planning Unit” attached to the Front Office.

He once recounted how, even as the most junior professional, he was surrounded by—and had the opportunity to work with—the first generation of UNICEF leaders, including such luminaries as Dick Heyward, Adelaide Sinclair, Charles Egger, Newton Bowles, Martin Sandberg, Margaret Gaan, François Remy, and others.

Apparently, UNICEF’s legendary Deputy Executive Director, Dick Heyward, took a special interest in this young professional and invited him for lunch on multiple occasions. The opportunity to interact with this wise leader and learn about his views and vision proved to be an invaluable foundation for Steve’s distinguished career in UNICEF and the United Nations for decades to come.

Steve later served as UNICEF Representative in the Philippines, Pakistan, and Burma/Myanmar. He also did a stint as Deputy Regional Director for South Asia in New Delhi and as Acting Director of the Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy. He left his mark in each of those postings.

One of his most sensitive appointments was in Myanmar. In his brief memoir, Burma Notes, Steve recalls how he cultivated an excellent “clandestine” relationship with the Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi while she was still under house arrest or close surveillance by the military junta. Steve skillfully arranged for her to visit the UNICEF office in Rangoon for a full day of informal briefings. This greatly endeared him to the UNICEF Burmese staff, as the opportunity to meet and chat with “The Lady” was an exceptional honor for them.

Like so many others around the world, Steve had great respect for Suu Kyi as a courageous freedom fighter who endured great personal sacrifice and dared to challenge the all-powerful Tatmadaw (Burmese military). But based on his multiple interactions with her, Steve had quietly concluded that, at heart, she was more of a Bamar nationalist than a truly enlightened humanist leader, as she was not particularly sensitive to the sentiments or aspirations of Myanmar’s non-Bamar ethnic groups. Years later, Steve’s intuition proved to be prescient when Suu Kyi testified at the International Court of Justice essentially supporting the Burmese military’s brutal treatment of the Rohingya Muslims. This indelibly tarnished her image as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

I recall Steve once saying that the three most profound Asian thinkers he had met and admired were Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi (before she was disgraced); Thailand’s public intellectual, civic leader, and public health reformer Dr. Prawase Wasi; and Indonesia’s polymath intellectual, diplomat, and scholar Prof. Soedjatmoko. I too shared Steve’s respect for all three of these leaders based on my own separate interactions with them.

On several occasions, Steve helped organize “mini reunions” of former UNICEF colleagues and their spouses in various places. These were truly special occasions of deep camaraderie and joyful exchanges for those of us who joined. I especially recall a memorable trip that my wife Binata and I took with Steve and Diane Umemoto to Tibet in April 2015, driving all the way from Kathmandu to Lhasa. That was not only a sightseeing trip but also an opportunity for us to share deep reflections on our respective worldviews, including our thoughts about China and Tibet.

In Steve’s passing, the UNICEF family has lost a stalwart of the second generation of its leadership, a fountain of encyclopedic knowledge about the early years of UNICEF, and a professional of the highest order who helped institutionalize the culture of long-term development planning for the rights and wellbeing of children in an organization originally established for short-term emergency humanitarian response.

Beyond his professional achievements, Steve was a mentor to many of us and a treasure trove of institutional memory about UNICEF’s great achievements - and its occasional setbacks - over many decades. He was a kind and compassionate human being, a brilliant strategist, a passionate advocate for the wellbeing of children worldwide, a mentor to many, and a dear friend to me.

Until his prolonged illness in the final chapter of his life, Steve lived fully and purposefully - combining intellectual curiosity, professional dedication, and a spirit of adventure in the service of children and humanity. Those of us fortunate enough to have worked with him, learned from him, or simply shared his friendship will long remember his wisdom, generosity of spirit, and quiet but enduring influence.

May his noble soul rest in eternal peace, and continue to inspire us all.