Kati
Suominen

Founder & CEO

EEUU

I am a business and policy entrepreneur, author, and scholar innovating in the nexus of trade, digitization and finance, so as to unlock economic opportunity worldwide. I am the Founder and CEO of both TradeUp, a growth capital platform for globalizing companies, and of Nextrade Group that helps governments, multilateral development banks, and corporations optimize public policy and lending strategies in support of trade and digitization.

I serve as Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), leading a project “Future of Trade”, and as Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Anderson School, where I teach international business economics and global digital disruption. I am on the advisory boards of four trade-related organizations.

I am the idea-woman behind three global initiatives in the nexus of trade and digitization – RTAexchange.org, a forthcoming global forum on trade agreements sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank; Aid for eTrade, a global multi-donor initiative to accelerate the adoption of ecommerce worldwide now championed by the United Nations; and eTrade Track, a forthcoming pilot program to fast-track small online merchants’ shipments in customs.

I chair a global expert group on regional trade agreements, sponsored by the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum, and am a member of expert groups on Global Value Chains and the Digital Economy, and of the T20 group of thought leaders on the Internet.

I have published 80 articles and 9 books and am working on the 10th, on the future of trade. I have spoken in 20+ countries, incl. at the WTO, IMF, World Bank, ADB, and European Commission, and commented in such media as Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time, USA Today, and LA Times. I received my PhD from UC San Diego and MBA from the Wharton School of Business. My best job and schooling was playing NCAA Division I tennis at University of Arkansas, Little Rock.