Empowering Women in ASEAN: Building Trade Ties With ASEAN’s Emerging Female Leaders

With a large and youthful population, the ASEAN region is one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse. A key player in global supply chains, the ten member states of ASEAN have a growing network of trade arrangements and are collectively expected to become the world’s fourth largest economy by 2030. New and expanding opportunities are emerging for women to shape the region’s trade and economic landscape, yet significant challenges remain to bridge the gender gap.

With these trends in mind, the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) is launching “Building Trade Ties with ASEAN’s Emerging Female Leaders” in partnership with the Silverado Policy Accelerator. This initiative aims to support the professional development of ASEAN’s next generation of female trade negotiators and experts by providing training and mentorship opportunities. The program will culminate in an intensive 10-day long program in the United States featuring workshops and briefings with trade experts, current and former government officials and female leaders in the private sector.

The launch event will feature remarks and Q&A with Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative, on advancing gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in ASEAN. Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Wendy Cutler will also be joined by Ambassador Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, Singapore’s ambassador to the United States; and Maureen Hinman, co-founder and executive chair of Silverado Policy Accelerator, to discuss these issues as well as the timeliness of this new program.

Speakers

Ambassador Katherine Tai currently serves as the 19th United States Trade Representative. Prior to her confirmation, Ambassador Tai served as Chief Trade Counsel and Trade Subcommittee Staff Director for the House Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. Congress. In this capacity, she played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. trade law, negotiations strategies, and bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the re-negotiated United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Ambassador Tai is also an experienced World Trade Organization litigator. She previously developed and tried cases for the Office of the USTR, eventually becoming the Chief Counsel for China Trade Enforcement.  

Ambassador Ashok Kumar Mirpuri currently serves as Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States. Prior to his current appointment, he served as Ambassador to Indonesia from 2006 to 2012, High Commissioner to Malaysia from 2002 to 2006, and High Commissioner to Australia from 2000 to 2002. A career diplomat, Ambassador Mirpuri joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in 1984. Prior to that, he was assigned to the Singapore Embassy in Jakarta as Minister-Counsellor and Deputy Chief of Mission.

Wendy Cutler is Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) and the managing director of the Washington, D.C. office. In these roles, she focuses on building ASPI’s presence in the nation's capital and on leading initiatives that address challenges related to trade, investment, and innovation, 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), where she also served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. During her USTR career, she worked on a range of bilateral, regional and multilateral trade negotiations and initiatives, including the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S.-China negotiations, and the WTO Financial Services negotiations.

Maureen Hinman is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator. Ms. Hinman most recently served as Director for Environment and Natural Resources at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) where she led a range of multilateral, regional, and bilateral trade policy initiatives focused on the environmental goods and services sector as well as natural resource conservation. She also previously served as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s senior industry trade specialist responsible for international policy development and interagency advocacy for the U.S. environmental technology industry.