[press release]
National Postal Museum Announces Appointments to Council of Philatelists

The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum announces the appointments of Ann Dunkin, Scott Guthrie, Yamil H. Kouri and Edmund “Edi” Truell to its Council of Philatelists.

The Council of Philatelists provides the National Postal Museum with philatelic advice, advises on engagement with the global philatelic community, promotes and advocates for the museum’s mission, purpose and programs to the nation and helps build the financial base of the museum. Members are appointed by the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents.

Ann Dunkin
Ann Dunkin is a Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer focused on state and local government at Dell Technologies. Prior to joining Dell, Ms. Dunkin was the Chief Information Officer for the County of Santa Clara, located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, the 15th largest county in the United States. Prior to joining Santa Clara County, Dunkin served in the Obama Administration as the chief information officer of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Prior to her time in Washington D.C., she was the chief technology officer for the Palo Alto Unified School District. She joined the School District after a long career at Hewlett Packard in a variety of leadership roles focused on engineering, research & development, information technology, manufacturing engineering, software quality and operations.

Dunkin’s collecting interests include United States stamps and airmail postal history. She specializes in the U.S. second airmail issue and the U.S. 75th Anniversary Universal Postal Union (UPU) issue. The 10-cent value of the UPU issue depicts the former Post Office Department headquarters, currently the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Ms. Dunkin is a published author, most recently of the book Industrial Digital Transformation, and sought-after speaker on the topics of technology modernization, digital transformation and organizational development. Following the 2020 presidential election, she served on the EPA Agency Review team for the Biden-Harris transition team. She currently serves on the OptimEyes.io Board of Advisors, the Winter Simulation Conference Board of Directors, the Agile Government Leaders (AGL) Board of Directors and the Georgia Tech President’s Advisory Board.

Ms. Dunkin holds a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering, both from The Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a licensed professional engineer in the states of California and Washington.

Scott Guthrie
Scott Guthrie has been collecting since childhood and focuses on the U.S. Classic Period, Great Britain Line Engraved Issues, and British Commonwealth. His specialty is the U.S. 1-cent Franklin, 1861—1867. He is a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London, U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, Great Britain Philatelic Society and American Philatelic Society.

A computer scientist by training, Scott is executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI business. He is a graduate of Duke University and lives with his wife and two children in Seattle, Washington.

Yamil H. Kouri
Yamil H. Kouri, Jr. has been a stamp collector since early childhood and became interested in postal history in the late 1970s. He has written close to 200 articles and monographs on postal history, most of them consisting of original research. They have covered a wide variety of subjects, primarily dealing with the maritime and military mail of Spain, former Spanish colonies, Cuba, the United States and several European countries. He has written or co-authored six books, most recently Spanish Colonial and Mexican Mail in the United States, which was published in early 2021.

Kouri is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society, numbered member of the Real Academia Hispánica de Filatelia e Historia Postal, member of the European Academy of Philately and belongs to more than twenty philatelic organizations in the United States, Latin America and Europe. He was the president of the Postal History Society (United States), and is now a member of the board of the American Philatelic Congress, the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society and chairman of the board of the Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History. He is the former president of the Cuban Philatelic Society and past editor of its journal, The Cuban Philatelist. He has served as vice-president of the American Philatelic Society and is currently the vice-president of the Federación Interamericana de Filatelia (FIAF). On many occasions he also represented the United States as FIAF delegate.

A frequent public speaker on a wide range of philatelic and postal history themes, he has made nearly a hundred presentations at various clubs, societies, symposia, institutions, meetings and exhibitions. In 2019 he signed the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society’s Roll of Distinguished Philatelists and in 2020 he was invited to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists by the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain.

When he is not engaged in philately, sports or family activities, he works as an oncologist and hematologist in the Boston area.

Edmund Truell
Edmund “Edi” Truell has been running third party funds since the age of 16. He qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst while studying Economics at Durham University. He was credit trained at Bankers Trust LBO group where he structured and advised major LBOs and infrastructure projects.

Edi created and ran a series of innovative entities, including Hambros European Ventures, Duke Street Capital private equity and Duchess debt funds, as well as Pension Insurance Corporation; Disruptive Capital Finance and the London Lancashire Pension Partnership / London Pensions Fund Authority (“LPFA”).

In 2014 he was voted Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” and is a former special economic advisor to the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson). While chairman of the LPFA, Edi was the architect of the merger for £260bn of public sector funds into seven “superpools” and is the Founder of the Pension SuperFund, the UK’s first Defined Benefits pension consolidator.

Edi is Trustee and Founder of the Truell Conservation Foundation; and formerly Director of Galapagos Conservation, Charles Darwin Foundation – the first debt for nature swap. He is also the former Chair of the UK Strategic Investment Advisory Board.

Other members of the National Postal Museum’s Council of Philatelists are listed on the museum’s website.

About the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents
The Smithsonian Institution was created by Congress in 1846 as “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Congress vested responsibility for the administration of the Smithsonian in a Board of Regents, consisting of the Chief Justice of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, three members of the United States Senate, three members of the United States House of Representatives and nine citizens.

About the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum is devoted to presenting the colorful and engaging history of the nation’s mail service and showcasing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of stamps and philatelic material in the world. It is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave. N.E., Washington, D.C., across from Union Station. As a public health precaution due to COVID-19, all Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are temporarily closed to the public. For more information about the Smithsonian, call (202) 633-1000 or visit the museum website at postalmuseum.si.edu.