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Please join AMCHAM Myanmar, along with AMCHAM Vietnam, AMCHAM Cambodia, and AMCHAM Thailand for a special briefing on the new Mekong-US Partnership with US Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary David Feith, DFC Indo-Pacific Managing Director Josh Cartin, and VP at EXIM Bradley McKinney. The new Mekong-US Partnership is a platform for continued cooperation in the Mekong region through training, shared water governance, education, poverty reduction, health and energy security, and women’s entrepreneurship. Register for your spot in this webinar to hear from experts about this new program.Date and Time: Oct 8, 8 am to 9 am (Myanmar Time)Venue: Zoom Webinar. A webinar link will be sent to you one day before the event.Cost: Free for AMCHAM Members. This event is open to members only.Booking deadline: Oct 7, 4 pmAbout the speakersDavid FeithDavid Feith serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs responsible for Regional and Security Policy and Multilateral Affairs. Before that, he was Senior Advisor in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP) and a member of the Policy Planning Staff, where he advised the Secretary of State on relations with countries across the Indo-Pacific region. Before government service, David was an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal based in Hong Kong, covering economics, security, and politics in Asia. Previously he was an op-ed editor for the Journal in New York, and an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs magazine. He has also consulted for the U.S. Air Force and published "Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education." He holds a B.A. in history from Columbia University.Josh CartinJosh Cartin serves as Managing Director, Indo Pacific, and Senior Advisor to the CEO, at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). In this role, he is responsible for setting the DFC’s regional engagement strategy and leading cross-departmental efforts to grow the DFC’s investment portfolio in the developing economies of the Indo-Pacific. Concurrently, Josh advises the Chief Executive Officer on matters related to the DFC role in supporting the U.S. government’s national and economic security objectives in Asia.Prior to joining the DFC, Josh served as Deputy Senior Director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council staff. In his 2 1/2 years at the White House, Josh played a key role in conceiving and executing the U.S. Indo Pacific strategy, and working with U.S. departments and agencies to better posture the United States for global economic competition. Josh is a 17+ year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, and has served in critical positions in Washington and Asia.Josh holds a B.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master’s in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College. He is a native of Tucson, Arizona. He speaks Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, and Spanish.Bradley McKinneyBradley McKinney serves as Vice President for Economic Security and Operations with the Program on China and Transformational Exports at the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM). In this role, he undertakes efforts to advance the United States’ comparative leadership in the world by engaging and building relationships with external stakeholders and foreign counterparts; generating and maintaining a robust pipeline of prospective Program-related deals; supporting EXIM's collaboration and building consensus with interagency partners, including the DC Central Deal Team; and managing Program operations, including budget and policy issues.Prior to EXIM, Bradley served as Chief of Staff of the International Trade Administration (ITA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this capacity, he served as the principal advisor to the Under Secretary for International Trade, providing counsel on management, strategic policy initiatives, and support in administering overall operations of the bureau. He initially joined the Administration in September 2018 as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service.Before joining the Trump Administration, Bradley was a food and agriculture policy consultant at Michael Torrey Associates and Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting. Earlier in is his career, he spent time with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, and as a senior aide to then-U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana.Bradley is a native of Fishers, Indiana. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, and an M.B.A. from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University. He and his wife, Kristie, have two sons, Fisher and Christian.About the Mekong-U.S. PartnershipThe Mekong-U.S. Partnership promotes the stability, peace, prosperity, and sustainable development of the Mekong sub-region through cooperation among the Mekong partner countries and the United States. It further reinforces the strong and longstanding relationship among the United States, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The Partnership has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the Mekong region and has been instrumental in providing poverty-reducing training and education to develop regional human capital resources.The United States has established itself as a committed partner in addressing trans-boundary challenges faced by the Mekong region and has spurred improved governance, enhanced natural resources management capacity, promoted sustainable infrastructure, strengthened health security, expanded energy security, supported higher quality education, and encouraged women’s entrepreneurship. The scope of cooperation under the Partnership includes transboundary water and natural resources management, non-traditional security, and energy and other infrastructure as part of its economic connectivity cooperation. Read more here.
