Workshop on the role of gender in the development of standards

Stephen de Boer was appointed as Canada’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization on August 21, 2017.  
Mr. de Boer joined Global Affairs Canada in 2005 and has held various positions in the department, including in the Investment Trade Policy and North America Trade Policy Divisions.  In 2006, he was named the Director of the Softwood Lumber Division.  From 2008 to 2010, he served as the Director of the Oceans and Environmental Law Division and as Lead Counsel for Canada’s international climate change negotiations.  In 2010, he joined Environment Canada as the Deputy Chief Negotiator for climate change and the Director General responsible for Canada’s international climate change negotiations and partnerships.  Mr. de Boer returned to the department in 2013 as the Director General of the Trade Controls Bureau.  In 2015, he was appointed Ambassador to Poland and in 2016, Ambassador to Belarus.  Prior to joining the public service, he worked for the Government of Ontario.
Mr. de Boer has published and lectured on international trade and environmental issues including at the Faculty of Law at Western University, Ryerson University, and at the School of Law at Case Western Reserve University.  He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Canada-U.S. Law Institute.  Mr. de Boer has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from Western University and a Master of Laws in International and Comparative Law from Georgetown University.

Michelle is the Manager, Research at the Standards Council of Canada (SCC).  She is responsible for leading research to demonstrate the economic and social value of standardization.  She recently authored the report, When One Size Does Not Protect All: Understanding Why Gender Matters for Standardization.  Prior to joining SCC, Michelle was a Senior Research Associate at The Conference Board of Canada, one of the largest think tanks in Canada.  While there she was a key presenter in a series of cross-country workshops highlighting the importance of internationally trained workers for the Canadian economy.  Michelle has a PhD in Experimental Psychology from McGill University and a BSc in Kinesiology & Health Sciences and Psychology from York University.

Gabrielle White works in trade policy as a Program Manager with the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). Her work focuses on standards and conformance and oversees SCC’s input to the standardization components of Canada’s Free Trade Agreements and regulatory cooperation. In addition to her work in trade policy, Gabrielle is a responsible for spearheading SCC’s gender and standardization strategy, and continues to lead key initiatives in this area. She holds a master's degree in Sociology.

Ms Jodi Scholtz has been the Group Chief Operating Officer (GCOO) of the National Department of Trade & Industry (the dti), South Africa since November 2009. She has been appointed as a Co-Administrator for the South African Bureau of Standards since July 2018 and the Lead Administrator in February 2020. Her role includes setting the strategy and managing the day-to-day activities of the Bureau as well as executing the turnaround strategy. Prior to her appointment as the GCOO, she was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) in the International Trade and Economic Development Division (ITED), a division of the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa. She joined the public service in 2002 from the private sector.

Her key areas of responsibility as the GCOO in the dti includes: strategy development and planning, compliance reporting on performance information, public entity management and oversight and marketing and stakeholder engagement. She is responsible for the development of the dti’s strategy and annual business plan as well as the dti’s annual report. Her primary mandate is to facilitate organizational improvement, monitor organisational performance and facilitate process efficiencies resulting in a clean audit for the dti for the past two consecutive years. Her duties also include amongst others financial management, human resource management and development within the division. She also serves on the board of Proudly South African (PSA) and chairs the Social and Ethics Committee at PSA.

She holds a Bachelors degree in Arts from the University of Cape Town, an Honours degree in Commerce from the University of the Western Cape, a diploma in International Trade Policy & Law from Harvard University J F Kennedy School of Government, a post graduate diploma in Trade Policy and Practice from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and also has participated in the African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE), in addition to various other short courses. She has completed her MBA at the Gordon Institute of Business Science and virtually graduated in April 2020. She is a mom of two amazing kids and loves reading, cooking and gardening.

Silvia Vaccaro has a university degree in Industrial Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and a master's degree in international Relations, Politics and Trade from the Sydney University, Australia. She works in the Unit Standards for Growth of the European Commission DG GROW, responsible for international relations with countries outside the EU. Her tasks focus on:

• WTO TBT (World Trade Organisation, Technical Barriers to Trade),
• UNECE WP 6 (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies),
• The TBT chapter of all Free Trade Agreements under negotiation
• Most third countries such as USA, Canada, South America, South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India and Japan
• International projects such as the SESEI (Seconded European Standardisation Expert in India) and the EEAS-FPI funded International Digital Cooperation 
• Other policy issues related to standardisation.

Previously she was several years in CEN-CENELEC, responsible for international cooperation (managing EU-funded projects and supervising bilateral relations with national and regional standards bodies).

She started her career in ANIMA, the Italian Federation of Machinery Manufacturers of Confindustria, the Italian Federation of Manufacturers, advising companies on how to implement CE marking EU legislation.

Deborah Wautier works for CEN and CENELEC, the European Committee for Standardization and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization. She is responsible for the engagement of industry and societal stakeholders in European standardization, while closely liaising with the CEN and CENELEC Members. She supports the inclusiveness & transparency of the system by leading projects to enhance the participation of European Partners, SMEs, Civil Society, Industry and bring a Gender-responsive perspective in the system.
She has a background in Applied Linguistics and has worked for the Council  of European  Municipalities and Regions as the officer for Statutory Affairs and Service to Members.

Judith is Policy and Data Lead, SheTrades Initiative, at the International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of UNCTAD and the WTO. In this capacity, she manages projects related to trade policy and women’s economic empowerment at global and regional levels; gender-disaggregated data collection and analysis; and technical support to national trade and trade-related policy reforms.

Mr Vepsäläinen is a senior trade economist with over 30 years of experience in trade promotion, export development and trade facilitation. During his career, he has worked extensively on issues related to SME development, export promotion, management of development programmes in Africa, Asia and transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He is currently involved in the work of the UN Economic Commission for Europe where he is in charge of the Steering Committee on Trade Capacity and Standards and its work on regulatory cooperation and standardization policy and agricultural quality standards. He guides UNECE’s work on research on regulatory and procedural barriers to trade in selected countries. Trilingual (English, French, Russian) he is also a keen speaker on reducing regulatory and procedural barriers to trade.

Prof Astrid Linder is Research Director of Traffic Safety at Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), responsible for the development of the research area crash safety and biomechanics. She is an Adjunct Professor in Injury Prevention at Chalmers University. Since Traffic safety, models of the human in crash testing, injury prevention and crash related countermeasures are main fields of her research activity in which she has extensively published and presented around the world during the last two decades.