Featuring
Heidi Brock, Aluminum Association
Wendy Cutler, Asia Society Policy Institute
Nova Daly, Wiley Rein
Rufus Yerxa, National Foreign Trade Council
Moderator: David Lynch, The Financial Times
Heidi Biggs Brock joined the Aluminum Association, based in Arlington, Virginia, as President in October 2011 and became CEO in October 2013. The association’s 113 members make 70 percent of the aluminum and aluminum products shipped in North America. Members of the association operate more than 200 facilities worldwide. Before joining the association, she was Vice-President of Federal and International Affairs leading the Washington D.C. office of Weyerhaeuser, a Fortune 500 company. Brock’s positions over 18 years at Weyerhaeuser included Vice-President for e-Business, Director of Strategic Planning, and Manager for Government Affairs as well as nine years as a corporate officer. Before joining Weyerhaeuser, she served on the staffs of former U.S. Senators Dan Evans and Slade Gorton. Brock recently completed a 3-year term as a board director with the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and is currently the immediate past Chair of the NAM’s Council of Manufacturing Associations. In addition, she is a recent board member of the Carlton Club, and an active fellow of the US-Japan Leadership Program. Brock received a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and economics from the University of Puget Sound, and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Georgetown University. She is married to the Reverend Charles Brock and they have a son, Samuel.
Wendy Cutler joined the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) as Vice President and Managing Director of the Washington D.C. Office in November 2015. 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 women’s empowerment in Asia. She joins 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. Ms. Cutler’s other responsibilities with USTR included U.S.-China trade relations, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, and the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum. She was the Chief U.S. Negotiator for the U.S.-Korea (KORUS) Free Trade Agreement and negotiated a wide range of bilateral agreements with Japan on such issues as telecommunications, autos, and semiconductors. She has extensive multilateral trade experience as the U.S. negotiator for the WTO Financial Services Agreement and several Uruguay Round Agreements. Prior to joining USTR, Ms. Cutler worked on trade issues at the Commerce Department. Ms. Cutler received her master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her bachelor’s degree from the George Washington University. She is married and has one son.
Nova James Daly is an international investment, trade and cyber security policy expert who has held senior leadership positions at the White House, the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Commerce and the U.S. Senate. As the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Investment Security and Policy at the Treasury Department (2006-2009), Mr. Daly led the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) process. In that capacity, he negotiated the current CFIUS law, wrote and implemented CFIUS regulations, and restructured the CFIUS process. He also represented Treasury in the Administration’s cyber security policy formulation. Prior to Treasury, Mr. Daly served as the Director for International Trade at the National Security Council where his responsibilities included multiple trade, investment and national security policy matters, including passage of CAFTA and WTO disputes. Mr. Daly also served as the Senior Advisor for Trade Policy to the Secretary of Commerce and worked for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Daly holds an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California, Irvine and a graduate degree in international law and organizations from American University.
Ambassador Rufus Yerxa became President of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) in May 2016. As president, he oversees NFTC’s efforts in favor of a more open, rules-based world economy, focusing on key issues to U.S. competitiveness such as international trade and tax policy, economic sanctions, export finance and human resource management. He has more than three decades of experience as a lawyer, diplomat, U.S. trade negotiator and international official. He has been in key policymaking and management roles in Congress, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and also spent several years in private law practice and the corporate world. As Deputy Director General of the WTO from 2002 to 2013 he helped to broaden its membership and strengthen its role as the principal rules-based institution governing world trade. Prior to this, from 1989 to 1995, he served as Deputy USTR under both a Republican and a Democratic President, first as the Geneva-based Ambassador to the GATT (the predecessor organization to the WTO) and subsequently as the Washington Deputy. Earlier in his government career (1981 to 1989) he was with the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Trade. He began his government career as a legal advisor with the U.S. International Trade Commission. After leaving government service in 1995 and prior to joining the WTO he spent five years in the private sector, first as the Brussels-based partner with a major U.S. law firm and later as European general counsel for a Fortune 500 company. Rufus is a native of Washington State. He received his BA in political science from the University of Washington (1973), his JD from Seattle University School of Law (1976) and an LLB in international Law from the University of Cambridge in England (1977). He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, and is also a Visiting Professor with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS).
David J. Lynch is the global economics correspondent for The Washington Post. He was previously a Washington correspondent with the Financial Times, cybersecurity editor at Politico and a senior writer with Bloomberg News, focusing on the intersection of politics and economics. Earlier in his career, he followed the global economy for USA TODAY, where he was the founding bureau chief in both London and Beijing. He covered the wars in Kosovo and Iraq, the latter as an embedded reporter with the U.S. Marines, and was the paper’s first recipient of a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. He has reported from more than 60 countries. He is also the author of When The Luck Of The Irish Ran Out: The World’s Most Resilient Country and Its Struggle to Rise Again, an account of modern Ireland’s journey from rags to riches and back again. During a 35-year career, Lynch also worked as a financial writer specializing in the aerospace and defense industries for The Orange County Register in southern California. In the 1980s, he was the editor of Defense Week, a Washington, D.C., trade publication covering national security. An experienced public speaker, Lynch has made television appearances on Fox, C-SPAN and PBS in the United States and BBC and Sky News in London. His speaking engagements have included lecturing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication and leading seminars for Chinese business journalists in Xi’an. Lynch has a master’s degree in international relations from Yale University and a B.A. in government from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Ct. He lives in northern Virginia with his wife Kathleen and their three sons.