On Thursday, February 29 WITA hosted a follow-up industry briefing live streamed from the World Trade Organization’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Featured Speakers:

Christine Bliss, President, Coalition of Services Industries (CSI)

Ed Brzytwa, Vice President of International Trade, Consumer Technology Association

Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, Principal and Founder, AgTrade Strategies

Lisa Schroeter, Global Director of Trade & Investment Policy, Dow

Tiffany Smith, Vice President, Global Trade Policy, National Foreign Trade Council

Moderator: Penny Naas, TradeExperettes

Speaker Biographies:

Christine Bliss is President of the Coalition of Services Industries (CSI). Prior to joining CSI, she served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for Services, Investment, Telecommunication, and E-Commerce. She also served as the lead U.S. negotiator in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Services Negotiations and in the WTO Bilateral Services Accession Negotiations for Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Ed Brzytwa is the Consumer Technology Association’s Vice President of International Trade. He leads CTA’s trade and supply chain policy and advocacy work, with a strong focus on improving the international trade environment and global supply chains to strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. consumer technology industry.

Sharon Bomer Lauritsen is the Founder of AgTrade Strategies LLC, a consulting service focused on U.S. agricultural trade policies. She retired from the U.S. government in 2020 with 29 years of experience, most recently as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Agricultural Affairs and Commodity Policy, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office the President. Sharon served at USTR for 15 years, leading agriculture trade negotiations for the United States, including with Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and at the World Trade Organization. She also worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA’s AMS) for 10 years in senior management positions. Previously, she worked for five years leading the agriculture section of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. She started her career in government relations for the United Fresh Produce Association.

Penny Naas is the former President of International Public Affairs and Sustainability at UPS. An experienced global leader, Mrs. Naas leads teams in the development and execution of strategies in complex, regulated environments. In her previous role, she led efforts to advance strategies for UPS and its customers on issues including climate change, cross-border trade, and digitalization. She began her UPS career joining as the Head of Public Affairs in the then-EMEA Region. Prior to joining UPS, she worked for Citigroup in the Global Government Affairs team. She opened Citigroup’s first government affairs office in Brussels, where she advanced legislative and regulatory strategies on issues that arose after the 2008 Financial Crisis. She started her career at the US Department of Commerce, where she worked for 13 years in various roles covering global commercial issues. Her final role was to lead the office of Europe, where she oversaw US-European commercial issues. She is an experienced Director on various not-for-profit Board of Directors. Mrs. Naas has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is a US and Belgian citizen.

Lisa Schroeter is the Global Director of Trade and Investment Policy for The Dow Chemical Company, Lisa oversees the global function and cross-business priorities for the global trade agenda as well as developing strategy on the international aspects of key corporate issues. Based in Washington, DC, Lisa’s responsibilities focus on trade policy and legislation, trade negotiations, and investment issues that foster growth in Dow’s global businesses through identification of policies facilitating market access and reducing global distribution costs.

Tiffany Smith is Vice President for Global Trade Policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, the leading business association dedicated solely to advancing the interests of U.S. companies in international commerce.
As Vice President, she leads efforts to advance global commerce and strengthen U.S. companies’ competitiveness abroad. She oversees the development and execution of NFTC’s trade policy strategy and leads work on key bilateral and regional trade relationships, the World Trade Organization and tariff reform issues.

To view the full event page, please follow this link:
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