WIIT Weekly

WIIT Weekly | Week of January 18, 2017

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Laura Lane

Laura Lane is President of Global Public Affairs for UPS. Her career has included past senior corporate roles with Citigroup and Time Warner, service as a USTR trade negotiator focused on China and financial services negotiations, and experience as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service in Rwanda and Colombia.

BIO:

Laura Lane serves as President of Global Public Affairs for UPS. Prior to joining UPS, Laura was Managing Director and Head of International Government Affairs at Citigroup and VP for Global Public Policy with Time Warner.

In her government career, Ms. Lane served in the US Trade Representative’s office, involved in the negotiations on China’s entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the WTO Financial Services negotiations. Ms. Lane was a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1990-1997, serving at the American Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda from 1993-1994. She led the evacuation effort of American citizens in April 1994 with the outbreak of civil war and returned as political advisor to U.S. forces providing humanitarian relief to Rwandan refugees. Laura subsequently delivered a TED talk on her experiences on “When to Follow your Heart and Write your own Rules” and shared her perspectives on the Rwandan genocide in the PBS/Frontline documentary “Ghosts of Rwanda.” Ms. Lane also served as economic and consular officer in Bogota, Colombia from 1990-1992.

She serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Coalition of Service Industries (CSI), as Vice Chairman of the Board of the German American Business Council, and as a member of the Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital. She has also been appointed as Vice Chairman of the President's Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. Finally, in 2014 and again in 2016, she served as Corporate Chair of the Global Partnership Initiative for Refugees International.

Ms. Lane holds a Bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Loyola University and a Master’s of Science Degree from Georgetown University. She is married to Greg Lane, an electrical engineer and former U.S. Marine, and has two daughters.

Ellen Wasylina

A thought leader in Security, an author, speaker, educator and commentator, she is also President and Founder of a Paris-based think tank, the International Geostrategic Maritime Observatory (IGMO) and Editor in Chief of their bi-annual publication, the Geostrategic Maritime Review. Both of their publication’s 2015 issues were centered around energy, looking at the Black Sea (Spring/Summer) and at the Caspian Sea (Fall/Winter).

Cabinet member and Former Director of Environment and Sustainable development of a French city of 20,000 people (2008-2011), Ellen Wasylina is also the author of two books in French “Ukraine : prémices de guerre froide en Europe?” and “La défense européenne : l’Europe est-elle prête pour son 11 septembre?” and was also an adjunct professor in Parisian business schools at the Masters levels (2011-2016), teaching many subjects from the Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, International Business, World Energy, Geopolitics of Energy and Sustainable Development and recently penned a piece in the special COP21 Presidency Key Brief edition on “Climat & Sécurité go hand in hand”.

She has just joined The Spectrum Group as a member and is Co-chair on the Energy and Environment committee.