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Speaker Biographies

Rebecca L. Bellinger

Executive Director, Center for Global Business, University of Maryland

Jennifer Black

Managing Director, International Trade, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development

Hon. Doug Burgum

Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior

Hon. Warren Davidson

Representative, Ohio’s 8th Congressional District

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky

Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and former Chair, EXIM Bank Council on China Competition

Trevor Gunn

Vice President – International Relations, Medtronic

Hank J. Holland

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Amaero

John F. Kotek

Senior Vice President, Policy Development and Public Affairs, NEI

Hon. Kelly Loeffler

Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration

Hon. Roger Martella

Chief Corporate Officer, GE Vernova

Ambassador Oksana Markarova

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United States

Chris Mitman

Founder and Managing Partner, Acre Impact Capital

Rt Hon. Dominic Raab

Head of Global Affairs, Appian Capital Advisory

Hon. Kimberly A. Reed

Former Chairman of Board of Directors, President, & CEO, EXIM

Venkee Sharma

Executive Chairman, Aquatech International

Matt Simpson

CEO, Black Iron

Bonny Slater

Healthcare Leader, Design Director, Senior Associate, Gensler’s Healthcare

Rowena Smith

Chief Executive Officer, Australian Strategic Materials

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, a foreign policy expert and diplomat specializing in national security affairs, is Vice Chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She brings over thirty years of government and international experience across senior levels of diplomacy, business, and defense.

From 2010 to 2012, she was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters, responsible for designing and implementing a corporate approach for engagement in Washington and other key capitals around the globe. She was instrumental in the development of Thomson Reuters’ financial regulatory strategy. During this time, she was also appointed the Distinguished National Security Chair at the US Naval Academy.

Dobriansky served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 2001 to 2009. Among her primary accomplishments, she established and led the US-India, US-China, and US-Brazil Global Issues Fora which advanced crucial work and international cooperation on environment, energy, health, and humanitarian issues. In February 2007, as the President’s Envoy to Northern Ireland, she received the Secretary of State’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, for her contribution to the historic devolution of power in Belfast.

Dobriansky has held many Senate-confirmed, senior-level positions in the US government, including Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Associate Director for Policy and Programs at the United States Information Agency, and Deputy Head of the US Delegation to the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. From 1997 to 2001, she served as Senior Vice President and Director of the Council on Foreign Relations and was the first George F. Kennan Senior Fellow on Russian and Eurasian Studies.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Atlantic Council Board (Executive Committee), Dobriansky has served on the Defense Policy Board, the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, and is the Chair of the US Export-Import Bank Council on China Competition. She is also a Trustee of the Trilateral Commission and on the Board of Advisors of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Ambassador Dobriansky received a BSFS summa cum laude in international politics from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, as well as an MA and PhD in Soviet political and military affairs from Harvard University. She has received high-level international recognition from the governments of Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Colombia and is the recipient of five honorary degrees.

John Kotek is NEI’s Senior Vice President of Policy Development and Public Affairs.

He is responsible for providing policy and public affairs leadership on financial, economic, tax, electricity market and environmental issues related to the nuclear energy industry.

Kotek was appointed in January 2015 to the position of principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) and was nominated by President Obama in October 2015 to serve as assistant secretary for nuclear energy. In that role he was responsible for DOE’s research efforts on current and future nuclear energy systems, maintaining the government’s nuclear energy research infrastructure, establishing a path forward for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste management program and a host of other national priorities.

Prior to his appointment, Kotek was the managing partner of the Boise office of Gallatin Public Affairs. He advised energy, natural resources and other clients facing complex communication and government relations challenges.

From 2010-2012, Kotek served as staff director to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which recommended a new strategy for managing nuclear waste in the United States. He led the development of the commission’s final report to the Secretary of Energy, engaged in regular communications with congressional and White House staff and served as media spokesperson.

From 2003-2006, Kotek was deputy manager of the DOE’s Idaho Operations Office. He was responsible for development and management of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) contract and interface with the INL cleanup effort. Before joining DOE in July 2003, Kotek worked for Argonne National Laboratory where he directed Argonne’s participation in the Generation IV technology road mapping project, an international effort focused on evaluating and developing a next-generation of nuclear energy systems.

In 2002, Kotek was the American Nuclear Society’s Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Fellow. He served in the Office of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Kotek started his career with DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. He held several positions during his nine years with DOE-NE, including associate director for technology, associate director for management and administration and chief of staff.

Kotek holds a Bachelor of Science in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois and a master of business administration from the University of Maryland.

Dominic Raab is the Head of Global Affairs at Appian Capital Advisory, providing strategic advice and support on Appian’s international engagement activities, primarily with government or government affiliated institutions and initiatives, most importantly around the topic of critical minerals.

Mr Raab is the Chair of the Appian-SAFE’s Sub-Committee on Opportunities and Risks in the Critical Minerals Sector (SCOR), bringing together leading commercial experts and investors to advise the US and international Governments on how to address investment barriers to build more critical minerals supply chains.

Mr Raab is a former Deputy Prime Minister for the British Government serving in this position under both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.

Mr Raab started his career as an international lawyer at Linklaters, a law firm in the City, working on project finance, international litigation and competition law. He also spent time on secondments at Liberty (the human rights NGO) and in Brussels advising on EU and WTO law.

In 2000, Mr Raab joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO). He advised on a wide range of briefs, including UK investor protection, maritime issues, counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism, the UK overseas territories and the international law of outer space. He headed up a team focused on bringing war criminals to justice and also advised on the Arab-Israeli conflict, EU law and Gibraltar.

Mr Raab left the FCO in 2006 and worked for three years as Chief of Staff to respective Shadow Home and Justice Secretaries, advising in the House of Commons on crime, policing, immigration, counter-terrorism, human rights and constitutional reform.

In 2010, Mr Raab was elected to the UK House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Esher and Walton. In 2015 Mr Raab was appointed Minister for Human Rights in David Cameron’s government.

In 2017, Mr Raab was appointed Minister of State for Justice in Theresa May’s government.

In January 2018, Mr Raab was made Minister of State for Housing. In July, he was appointed Brexit Secretary.

In July 2019, Mr Raab was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and made First Secretary of State under the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. In September 2020, the FCO merged with the Department for International Development, with Mr Raab becoming the Secretary of State for the new Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

In September 2021, Mr Raab was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice under Prime Minister Boris Johnson until September 2022.

He was re-appointed as Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in October 2022, serving in this position until April 2023.

The Honorable Kimberly A. Reed served as the first woman Chairman of the Board of Directors, President, and CEO of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM)—the nation’s official $135 billion export credit agency—from 2019 to 2021 after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. During her tenure, Ms. Reed led efforts to reopen the now 91-year-old independent federal agency after four years of near closure, secured the longest-ever Congressional reauthorization, and build a high-performing team—elevating EXIM’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey employee satisfaction score by an unprecedented 20 points, the highest increase among all federal agencies with more than100 employees. With respect to national security, she helped advance Abraham Accord priorities around the world and launched the “Program on China and Transformational Exports” to bolster U.S. business competitiveness, specifically with respect to the People’s Republic of China and in ten innovative sectors: 5G, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, biomedical sciences, renewable energy and energy storage, water treatment and sanitation, quantum computing, high-performance computing, semiconductors, and emerging financial technologies. She was presented with the U.S. Department of Defense’s highest civilian award for her efforts. Ms. Reed currently serves on the Board of Directors of several public companies and the American Swiss Foundation. Additionally, she is a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Competitiveness and the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center, is a Council on Foreign Relations life member, and recently volunteered as the lead of the Trump 2024 EXIM Transition and Landing Teams. Earlier in her career, Ms. Reed was President of the International Food Information Council Foundation where she worked with multi-national food, agriculture, and nutrition companies; Senior Advisor to U.S. Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and John Snow; CEO of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund; and Counsel to three committees of the U.S. Congress where she conducted oversight and investigations. Recognized as one of the “100 Women Leaders in STEM” and Washingtonian’s “Most Powerful Women in Washington,” Ms. Reed holds a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law and a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in government from West Virginia Wesleyan College.