Global Conversations in International Business Transactions Discussion Series

Kish Parella is the Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law. Her expertise is in international business, with a focus on business and rights regulation. She has advised government officials, corporate executives and UN working groups on various issues of business and human rights. She is also an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, Said Business School, Oxford University. She serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and the Board of Directors for Corporate Accountability Lab, a non-profit organization dedicated to using legal strategies to hold corporations accountable for human rights abuses. Prior to entering the legal academy, she practiced international litigation and arbitration at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.

Pete Jeydel guides clients on the complexities of US export controls, economic sanctions, and other areas at the intersection of international trade and national security. His focus is on understanding clients’ objectives and helping them navigate legal, commercial, and reputational risks under the Commerce Department’s Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and the economic sanctions of the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). His clients span a variety of industries, including aerospace and defense, technology, cybersecurity, financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, agriculture, oil and gas, metals and mining, tourism/hospitality, real estate development, non-profit, and others. He has been deeply involved with issues related to Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Myanmar, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Zimbabwe. Prior to joining Steptoe, he helped to develop and coordinate US interagency policy on Central Asia for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

Todd Huntley is the Director of the National Security Law Program and a Lecturer in Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He is a retired Navy Captain and served as an active duty Judge Advocate for more than 23 years. Prior to joining Georgetown, he was a Professor of National Security Law at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville. He previously served as the Directory of the Navy’s National Security Law Division. While at the Pentagon, he served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Threat Reduction and Arms Control as well as a member of the Senior Review Group for a Joint Staff study on hybrid threats. He has also served as the Chief, Information Operations Law at US Special Operations Command and as the legal advisor to the Joint Military Information Support Command, as well as the SJA, Special Operations Command Central and Combined Forces Special Operations Command where he deployed to Qatar, Iraq, Yemen, and other locations in the Middle East. He also served as the legal advisor for US Special Operations Command, National Capital Region. He deployed to Afghanistan twice with a Joint Special Operations Task Force in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and has supported a Joint Special Operations Task Force conducting world-wide counter-terrorism missions.

Topic: "Recognition, Section 25B of the Federal Reserve Act, and the Strategic Regulation of Foreign State Business in the United States"

Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and the general counsel and a senior editor for Lawfare, where he is a frequent contributor. Prior to exiting government service, he was the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on a diverse array of legal issues relating to the Middle East and North Africa. He was also previously an International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C.

Topic: "Untraceable: Customs Tax Evasion and Banking Interventions in International Trade"

Jade Craig is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Professor Craig's research interests include the racial wealth gap, real estate law, financial regulation, and public finance. Professor Craig graduated with a B.A. from the University of Virginia where he majored in French and Political & Social Thought. As a college student, he interned at the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation in Ireland and studied international relations in Morocco and at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Race & Law. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the late Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Detroit and to Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in Jackson. In 2014, he was appointed Special Policy Advisor to HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity during the Obama Administration. Following his appointment, Professor Craig was a lawyer in private practice before becoming a law professor. He specialized in commercial litigation and labor and employment law. He is also the owner of Jade A. Craig, P.A., a law firm where he has advised clients on financial regulatory matters, including restrictions on money services businesses and the establishment of state-chartered banks. He has also represented clients in disputes with financial regulators in both state and federal courts.

Topic: "Combating Maritime Perils in The Global Supply Chain: An Analysis of Force Majeure Clauses, And The Doctrine of Commercial Impracticability In the Wake of "State-Sponsored" Piracy"

Glenys Spence is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Toledo College of Law where she teaches business associations, contracts, and international human rights law. Prior to joining the faculty at Toledo Law, Professor Spence taught at Barry University School of Law, The University of Arkansas Bowen School of Law, and Arizona Summit Law School. Prior to academia, Professor Spence served as a law clerk for the Honorable John H. Wagner, Jr., and practiced immigration law and civil litigation in Pittsburgh, PA. A Native of the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Professor Spence is deeply interested in the law and development of countries in the Southern hemisphere. In that vein, Professor Spence's scholarship focuses on the intersection of business law and human rights, maritime law, international commercial law, and law and development in post-colonial countries. Professor Spence has published articles on immigration-related issues, international human rights, the U.N. Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and maritime arbitration. Her most recent article, Echoes of the Zong: Confronting Legal Realism in the Arguments For Reparations From the Atlantic Slave Trade and Modern-Day Human Trafficking was published in the Fordham Journal of International Law. Professor Spence holds a J.D. with a Certificate in International and Comparative Law from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and an L.L.M. in Admiralty and Maritime Law from Tulane University School of Law.

Topic: "Can De-risking Avert Supply Chain Precarity in the Face of China-U.S. Geopolitical Tensions? From Sanctions to Semiconductor Resilience and National Security"

Qingxiu Bu has published widely in a variety of areas of law, many of which are themed around law and global challenges, with a particular focus on the development of legal infrastructures in transnational law and global governance. Qingxiu has just completed his Fellowship at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STiAS). He has previously been a lecturer in law at Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University (2007-08) and School of Law, Queen's University Belfast (2008-13), during which he taught Transnational Business Law at Centre of Transnational Legal Studies (CTLS), Georgetown University as Adjunct Professor. Qingxiu was appointed as Li Kashing Professor of Practice at Faculty of Law, McGill University in 2019. He has held visiting posts at various institutions, including Lund University, Sweden, University College Dublin, Ireland, Tel Aviv University, Israel and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Germany. He worked also as Docent at the Institute of Global Law and Policy (IGLP), Harvard Law School in January 2013 and 2014. Qingxiu has completed five projects funded respectively by the British Academy, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Newton Fund, and British Council (PMI) during the past years. Qingxiu serves as a senator member at University of Sussex.

Øistein Jensen is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Odfjell SE. He was previously Chief of Staff at Odfjell and was appointed to CSO in August 2020 as a part of the company’s dedicated focus on sustainability. Øistein has been part of Executive Management in the group since 2016. He was in 2021 elected as a board member of Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN). Jensen is an executive with broad experience in naval leadership, management consulting, sustainability, anti-corruption and shipping. He is a frequent speaker and is regarded as a leading voice on sustainability in shipping. Øistein was a director at PwC Management Consulting for ten years, working on strategy, ESG, and compliance. Øistein came to PwC from the Navy, where he served as captain of a submarine and commander for the submarine command training. Øistein has a Bachelor of Military Science from the Naval Academy and an MBA from Norwegian School of Economics.

Vinita Singh is currently a visiting assistant professor and faculty fellow at the University of Iowa College of Law. She earned her JD at the University of Iowa and her LLM in national security law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Her scholarship focuses on economic statecraft, the use of economic tools to effect foreign policy and national security goals. Before transitioning to academia, she practiced at Kirkland & Ellis, advising on the tax aspects of international transactions. Her current research project explores the intersection of national security and taxation by examining the challenges of wielding the law of immunity from taxation to achieve national security goals.

Stephanie Wang focuses her practice on international trade matters and has represented US and foreign companies across a range of industries, including the energy, steel, chemical, financial, and mining sectors. As part of her practice, Stephanie helps clients effectively navigate complex global trade issues and counsels companies on effectively implementing trade and supply chain strategies. She specializes in antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duty proceedings before the US Department of Commerce, the US International Trade Commission, as well as appellate litigation before the US Court of International Trade. Stephanie also advises clients on customs compliance matters, including the requirements that apply to goods subject to AD/CVD or other tariffs. Stephanie has expertise in trade proceedings brought under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as well as Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and she also has experience counseling sovereign and private clients on their rights and obligations under free trade agreements, the World Trade Organization, and other international agreements. Prior to joining Steptoe, she worked as a staff reporter covering the U.S. Department of State for the Asahi Shimbun.

Victor Ban serves as Special Counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where he coordinates the development of supply chain policy through trade negotiations and interagency initiatives. Before joining USTR, he practiced law at Covington & Burling, clerked for two federal judges, and was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, Oxford University, and Harvard College, and is a licensed U.S. customs broker.

Lara D. Crouch is a Senior Professional Staff Member covering the Indo-Pacific region on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Immediately prior, Lara was a Special Assistant on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where she worked primarily on the economic and governance pillars of the Administration's Indo-Pacific Strategy. In 2014, she interned at the Department of Defense, focusing on China and U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific region. In addition to her government service, she was previously a Senior Associate at Beacon Global Strategies LLC, advising private sector clients on foreign and national security policy issues. She has also served in research roles in the Asia programs of the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. Lara earned a B.A. with distinction from the University of Virginia and an M.A. in Asian Studies from Georgetown University. She studied Mandarin Chinese for six years.

Sergio Fontanez serves as Senior Advisor for National Security to the President and Chair of the Export Import Bank of the United States. Mr. Fontanez is a U.S. Air Force veteran with over a decade of experience in U.S. national security. Prior to joining EXIM, he served as a Country Director for the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, where he focused on military interoperability with partner nations in South Asia. Before joining the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Sergio was an associate with Holland & Knight LLP, where he advised corporate executives on international trade and national security regulatory issues. He has also served a Presidential Management Fellow with the U.S. Department of State as an Intelligence Analyst and Policy Advisor to the United States Special Representative for North Korea. Sergio holds an LL.M. in National Security from Georgetown University, a J.D. and M.A from The George Washington University, and B.A.s in History and Mathematics from Central Connecticut State University.

Carole House is the White House National Security Council (NSC) Special Advisor for Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure. Most recently outside of government, she was an Executive in Residence at Terranet Ventures, Inc., and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. She has served as the Chair of the Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and previously served at the NSC as the Director for Cybersecurity and Secure Digital Innovation. Carole first joined the NSC from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), where she led cybersecurity, virtual currency, and emerging technology policy efforts as a Senior Cyber and Emerging Technology Policy Officer. Prior to FinCEN, she worked as a Presidential Management Fellow supporting the White House Office of Management and Budget's Cyber and National Security Unit and the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on cybersecurity, supply chain risk management, and critical infrastructure protection policy issues. Carole is a former Army Captain who served in chemical defense and military intelligence until November 2014, including a deployment to Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, from 2012 to 2013 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She holds a BA in international affairs from the University of Georgia and an MA in security studies from Georgetown University.

Tip Myers is a Partner at Marque Ventures, an early-stage venture fund supporting startups building technology for national security. Previously, Tip was the Head of Operations at the Army Venture Capital Corporation, the only organization authorized by Congress to make equity investments on behalf of the Department of Defense; before that, he worked on the Growth team at Second Front Systems; before that, he was a Marine Infantry Officer serving with First Battalion, Eighth Marines. Tip holds an MBA with concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurship & Innovation from The Wharton School and a B.S. in History from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Frederick F. Shaheen is currently the Principal of Gibraltar Compliance LLC providing trade controls and sanctions policy consulting services to trade associations, corporate clients and select law firms. Previously, he served as the Chief Counsel for Global Trade for The Boeing Company from 2009 to 2021 and was responsible for all U.S. and non-U.S. trade control and sanctions legal counsel at Boeing. In addition, Fred served as a policy advisor to the company's Government Operations team with regard to current and proposed legislation related to defense trade, sanctions, CFIUS and foreign policy issues with an emphasis on those matters related to export/trade with China, Australia, NATO, Russia, and the MENA region. Prior to Boeing, Fred was a trade controls and sanctions attorney in private practice for sixteen years in Washington, DC and simultaneously served as the Chair of both the export controls and government contracts practices groups at the international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Previous to his career as an attorney, Fred was a political appointee at the U.S. Department of State where he worked on nuclear arms control negotiations while simultaneously attending The George Washington University Law School. Prior to the State Department he served in the U.S. Navy achieving the rank of Lieutenant Commander while deployed in nuclear submarines and surface ships. Among his assignments he served on ballistic missile and attack submarines and also served as Flag Lieutenant to Commander, Submarine Group Six where he was involved in the commissioning of the first six Ohio Class SSBNs. His Naval service also afforded him assignments to the Departments of State and Defense in various arms control policy positions including participation in two U.S.-U.S.S.R. presidential summits. Fred received his Law degree from The George Washington University; his Masters degree in Russian Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA where he was awarded the school's National Security Award; and his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University. He is a member of the Bar in both Washington, DC and the Commonwealth of Virginia.