The mission of Best Delegate is to help students and teachers change the world through Model UN. Model UN helped us get into college, develop leadership skills, and explore the world. Now we share that experience and our passion for the activity with others.
Best Delegate is an education company that accomplishes its goals primarily through three ways:
BestDelegate.com: We promote Model UN conferences and publicize team achievements around the world on our blog, BestDelegate.com, in order to share the value of Model UN and to help connect the global Model UN community.
Leadership Training: We teach students the leadership skills they need to be successful delegates, conference organizers, and future leaders of the world through workshops, private coaching, and strategy guides.
Teacher Empowerment: We run free seminars, design custom educational materials, and consult for teachers and organizations interested in bringing Model UN, international studies curriculum, or leadership education to their classrooms.
Best Delegate was founded in 2007 and is based out of New York City and Orange County, California.
Meet the Best Delegate Team
Ryan Villanueva
In his senior year of college, Ryan reflected on what he had learned after eight years of doing Model UN and asked himself, “What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?” He then started a blog, Best Delegate, and began writing down his strategies, stories, and opinions on MUN.
Ryan’s Model UN career started as a freshman at Mission Viejo High School in Orange County, California, where he served as Secretary-General of his high school’s conference. He went to Yale University and continued doing MUN, winning awards with the travel team and serving as Secretary-General of the college conference. Ryan also became involved with UNA-USA, doing a summer internship with them, presenting at their MUN leadership summit, and staffing several Global Classrooms conferences.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale, Ryan moved to New York City to work for Goldman Sachs. He helps students improve their Model UN skills and works with teachers to use Model UN in the classroom.
Learn more about Ryan by reading Why I Left My Job for Model UN.
Kevin Felix Chan
On his personal blog, Kevin lists one of his top life experiences as being Secretary-General of UNA-USA MUN and giving the opening speech in the UN General Assembly Hall to over 2,000 students, teachers, and the real UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.
Kevin—or KFC, as he’s better known around the MUN community—was Head Delegate for the UCLA MUN Travel Team. He has staffed over 25 conferences and served as Secretary-General of four: UNA-USA MUN in New York, the UCLA MUN College Conference, Global Classrooms: Los Angeles, and the Rowland High School MUN Conference. In addition, he continues to serve as the coordinator for the Contra Costa County MUN Conference.
KFC received his bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA and earned certificates from Cornell University and Fudan University in China. He previously held management positions in marketing, operations, and sales for AT&T and draws on his experience to teach leadership skills, help teams and conferences grow, and analyze trends in the Model UN community.
Learn more about KFC by reading Why I Left My Job for Model UN, Too.
Sarah Lambino
Before Sarah even raised a placard, she first got involved with Model UN by helping her older sister develop chair training simulations. After hearing travel team and chair training stories, she attended her first Model UN conference in 2002. Sarah quickly became involved with Washington State Model United Nations at the University of Washington and served as its Secretary-General.
After graduating from college, Sarah moved to New York and began organizing conferences professionally as a lead event planner for the Global Classrooms Model UN program. She organized conferences in major cities around the US, such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Boston. She also assisted the Global Classrooms international project partners with conference training. In addition to event planning, Sarah was also an integral part of the redesign of the Global Classrooms Model UN website and start-up of its Model UN Calendar.
Sarah graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in biology. Sarah focuses on Best Delegate’s social media marketing and website development.
Parsa Sobhani
Parsa brings to the team over ten years of experience in Model UN. Following an early introduction to MUN in the seventh grade, Parsa began competing against high school students much older (and taller) than him.
Parsa has served as Secretary-General for six conferences. His first time was at University High School in Irvine, California. Parsa gained a greater appreciation for conference planning in college, where he served as Secretary-General for UCLA’s high school conference two years in a row. He has also been very active with UNA-USA’s Global Classrooms conferences, serving twice as Secretary-General for Global Classrooms: Los Angeles and once for the inaugural Global Classrooms: Pacific Rim International.
Parsa graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in economics and minors in statistics and global studies. After graduating, Parsa was a Fellow in Public Affairs at Coro Southern California. As part of the Best Delegate team, Parsa focuses on community engagement and website development.
Emily Block
Emily has always been interested in current events, read newspapers, and watched the news but did not realize that some of her peers were interested in it too until one day she walked into the opening ceremonies for Yale Model United Nations, her first conference. Suddenly she was in a room with thousands of other high school students who were also passionate about world affairs. From that moment on Emily knew that she loved Model UN.
Emily discovered Model UN only two years ago during her junior year and has since attended seven conferences. Emily is currently the president of the Trumbull High School Model UN club. She will also be serving as the Secretary-General for the inaugural Trumbull Model United Nations Invitational (TMUNI) in the spring of 2011. Serving as Secretary-General has given Emily a true understanding and appreciation of the hard work that goes into planning a conference.
Emily will be attending the University of Connecticut in the fall, and looks forward to participating in Model UN on the college level. Emily will focus on marketing, social media, and developing articles and resources for the Model UN community.
