SPEAKER BIOS
Speakers listed in order as they appear
Kenneth Levinson serves as the Executive Director of the Washington International Trade Association (WITA). WITA is Washington’s largest non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing a neutral forum in the U.S. capital for the open and robust discussion of international trade policy and economic issues. WITA has over 3,00 members, and more than 170 corporate sponsors and group memberships.
Previously, Ken served as Senior Director for Global Government Affairs for AstraZeneca. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Ken served as Senior Vice President and COO at the Washington, DC consulting firm of Fontheim International. Ken joined Fontheim after spending six years on the staff of U.S. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, where he served as the Senator’s chief advisor for international trade, tax, foreign policy, and national security.
Ken received a Master’s degree in European History from New York University after doing his undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst. Ken also spent a year studying at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Ken and his wife, the Reverend Donna Marsh, live in Bethesda, MD, with their two daughters.
Ambassador Darci Vetter, former Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the US Trade Representative (USTR) and Deputy Under Secretary at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), coordinates Edelman’s North American Food and Beverage practice, and works closely with clients throughout the U.S. Agriculture, Food and Beverage Sectors.
Darci works closely with Edelman’s clients to develop business and communication strategies to help companies meet changing consumer expectations while complying with a rapidly changing policy landscape. Her work has helped clients navigate international trade tensions and address transparency and traceability issues to implement and verify sustainability and animal welfare initiatives.
Darci joined Edelman in 2018, and brings deep international trade, agriculture and food policy experience to her work following a 17-year career in the federal government. After leaving government in early 2017, Darci was the Diplomat in Residence at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, where she helped launch the Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance.
While serving as President Obama’s Chief Agricultural Trade Negotiator, she led the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agricultural package, as well as bilateral deals with Japan, China, Brazil and other countries.
Previously, she oversaw the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service and led U.S. delegations to re-open international markets to US beef and advance international standards for food safety and animal health. Darci also served as an International Trade Advisor on the Senate Finance Committee.
Darci serves on the board of directors of the Neogen Corporation, the Farm Foundation, and the Washington International Trade Association. She is also a Member of the CME Group Agricultural Markets Advisory Council, and the Advisory Board of the Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance. She grew up in Nebraska on her family’s farm and lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two children.
Sabine Weyand Ph.D. is Director-General for Trade at the European Commission. She was Deputy Chief Negotiator of the Commission Task Force for the Preparation and Conduct of the Negotiations with the United Kingdom under Article 50 of the TEU from October 2016 to May
2019.
She joined the European Commission in 1994 where she worked on industry and trade issues before serving in the Cabinets of Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Commission President Barroso and heading the private office of Development Commissioner Louis Michel.
She then became Director in the Secretariat-General of the Commission in charge of policy coordination on economic, social and environmental policies before joining DG Trade in 2016 as Deputy Director-General, covering multilateral trade policy, trade relations with North America and European neighborhood countries as well as trade defense.
She holds an M.A. degree in political science and economics from Freiburg University (DE), a Master’s degree from the College of Europe and a Ph.D. from Tübingen University (DE)
Ambassador Alan Wolff began his four-year term as Deputy Director-General on 1 October 2017. Ambassador Alan Wm. Wolff, formerly Senior Counsel at the global law firm Dentons, is one of the world’s leading international trade lawyers. He has been engaged to resolve some of the largest international trade disputes on record.
Prior to his service at he WTO, Alan served as the Chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) which was called into being by President Wilson in 1914 to support open international trade and which today represents hundreds of American companies who employ millions of workers. He is Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Trade and Commercial Diplomacy (ITCD). Ambassador Wolff
He was acting Head of the U.S. Delegation for the Tokyo Round, and a principal draftsman of the basic U.S. law creating a mandate for trade negotiations. As Deputy USTR he was a founder of the OECD Steel Committee and its first chairman. He has served as a senior trade negotiator in, and advisor to, both Republican and Democratic administrations. He holds a J.D. degree from Columbia University and an A.B. degree from Harvard College.
Wendy Cutler joined the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) as vice president in November 2015. She also serves as the managing director of the Washington D.C. Office. In these roles, she focuses on building ASPI’s presence in Washington — strengthening its outreach as a think/do tank — and on leading initiatives that address challenges related to trade and investment, as well as women’s empowerment in Asia.
She joined ASPI following an illustrious career of nearly three decades as a diplomat and negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). Most recently she served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, working on a range of U.S. trade negotiations and initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region. In that capacity, she was responsible for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, including the bilateral negotiations with Japan. She also was the chief negotiator to the U.S.-Korea (Korus) Free Trade Agreement. Cutler received her master’s degree from Georgetown.