Agribusiness Engineer & Project Manager in Trade Promotion Agency of Costa Rica.

Since January 2013 Marian has been working for the Department for International Trade, initially leading Global Operations and the Northern Powerhouse and now as the Director for English Regions, a national role focused on landing inward investment and on supporting SMEs to trade internationally.

Maitane Olabarria is a Spanish national with 20 years of experience in European affairs and standardisation. She has a degree in Political and Administration Sciences from the University of the Basque Country in Spain and a Master of Arts in European Studies from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

From 2006 to 2017, she worked for the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) as Programme Manager in the Standards Department. At CEN, she was responsible for standardisation activities in the areas of services, bio-based products, (bio)fuels and energy management. She also has more than six years of experience working for different European associations in the areas of distance selling and e-commerce (EMOTA), and in the machine tool and manufacturing technologies sector (CECIMO).

In January 2020, Ms Olabarria was appointed Secretary General of SBS (Small Business Standards), the European association representing the interests of SMEs in standardisation.

Dr. Zakiyah serves as Deputy for Standard Implementation and Conformity Assessment at the National Standardization Agency of Indonesia. She carries out activities related to the governance of the implementation of the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) comprehensively, which includes increasing the involvement of organizations and business actors in the application of standards and conformity assessment in the context of strengthening national competitiveness.

Whitney Ward grew up in the Central Valley of California surrounded by the fruit exporting industry and took an interest in it in her early 20s after attending Fresno State University. She has been exporting produce, including onions and potatoes, for 12 years to Central America, South East Asia and the Middle East.”

Rajesh Aggarwal is Director Officer in Charge, Division of Market Development at the International Trade Centre (ITC) providing technical assistance services in building conducive business environment, research and analytics and trade & market intelligence. More specifically, he is leading programmes aimed at building capacity of the private sector in developing countries to effectively engage in business advocacy with their governments on multilateral and regional / bilateral trade negotiations and national trade policy issues. The programme also encompasses assistance on implementation of trade facilitation reforms, strengthening standards and quality infrastructure to assist developing countries to credibly demonstrate conformity with international standards, and meeting trade and market analysis needs of businesses for competitive intelligence.

Before joining the International Trade Centre in Geneva, he has been India’s negotiator in the WTO covering Agriculture, TRIPS and Public Health, Rules and Trade & Competition Policy for more than 5 years and overall experience of over 22 years working in senior positions in Government of India.

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 Policy 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
• Bilateral relations with the US, i.e. TTC (Trade and Technology Council) WG1 Technology Standards
• All third countries such as USA, Canada, China, South America, South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India and Japan
• International projects such as the SESEI (Seconded European Standardisation Expert in India), SESEC (Seconded European Standardisation Expert in China) 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.

Ana Laura LIZANO is Minister Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the WTO since January 2015. From her post, she covers the topics related to Trade and Environment, Trade Facilitation, Technical Barriers to Trade, Trade and Development and Gender, among others. She currently co-chairs the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions at the WTO; a forward-looking and inclusive platform for dialogue and incubation of ideas among participating cosponsors, on the divergence of the trade and environmental agendas.

Ms. Lizano has more than 20 years of professional experience in both the public and private sector, which has awarded her broad knowledge in public policy, trade negotiations, the multilateral trading system, international relations, sustainable development, government, logistics and supply chains.

Prior to her current posting, she served as an Advisor and later as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica. In the private sector, she worked 11 years for DHL Global Forwarding in different administrative and operational positions, with the last reporting directly to the C.E.O. for Latin America.

Ms. Lizano has a Master’s degree in International Relations and a degree in Business Administration with emphasis in International Trade. She has one daughter and one son.

David G. Hutchison has served as Director General, Trade Portfolio Strategy and Coordination, in the Trade Commissioner Service of Canada, since December 2021.  The group he leads is responsible for strategic policy, crown corporation governance, responsible business conduct, FTA promotion, support to under-represented exporters and trade missions.  Prior to his current role, David served as Executive Director responsible for strategic policy and crown corporation governance.  Since joining Global Affairs Canada in 2001, he has worked on a wide range of policy issues, including the UN, NATO, G7 and Latin America.  From 2008-2012 he served as First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

David holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Alberta.  He has also undertaken executive studies at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and at University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.

Major Clark is the Deputy Chief Counsel for the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, of the Chief Counsel for Advocacy. Deputy Chief Counsel Clark has worked in the Office of Advocacy since 1998, including as Assistant Chief Counsel for Procurement and Small Business and as head of Advocacy’s international trade team. He served as the Acting Chief Counsel since January 2017 until taking over as Deputy Chief Counsel in November 2021. During his tenure at Advocacy, Clark has published and spoken on small business and procurement. In 2019 he was presented an award from the World Bank for his work on procurement issues.

Before joining Advocacy, Clark was Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Administration at the MAXIMA Corporation for eleven years, where he supervised forty-eight separate federal contracts worth one million dollars or more, was the senior corporate officer for administration, and was the Corporate Secretary to the Maxima board of directors.

Deputy Chief Counsel Clark was the former Chief of Staff and Senior Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business. During his tenure, the committee passed important legislation including the Small Business Research and Innovation Act and the 10 percent minority business set aside for the Department of Transportation.

Prior to his tenure with the Committee on Small Business, Clark earned his Juris Doctor and Masters of Urban Planning from the University of Iowa and a Bachelor of Science, Political Science, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University. He also served as a professor in the Graduate Urban Planning program at Morgan State University. Currently, he is an adjunct professor in the Graduate Management program at the University of Maryland Global Campus and a certified Executive Coach with the International Coaching Federation and Howard University Coaching Diversity.