Speakers

Damie Sinanan has spent the last nine years with Caribbean Export Development Agency where he currently holds the position of Manager– Competitiveness and Export Promotion. His major area of focus is private sector development, trade and export promotion with a focus on digitalization of business, green energy adoption and building economic resilience.

He has over 15 years of experience in the field of export development and promotion having previously held posts at exporTT – the official trade promotion agency of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Damie holds a B.Sc, M.Sc and PhD in Economics from the University of the West Indies.

Shamika N. Sirimanne is the Director of the Division on Technology and Logistics of UNCTAD.  She leads UNCTAD's trade logistics programme, including the work on trade facilitation, maritime transport, port management, and e-commerce and the digital economy. She also supervises UNCTAD’s largest technical cooperation programme, ASYCUDA—the Automated System for Customs. 

Ms. Sirimanne has extensive experience in development policy, research and technical cooperation gained from international organizations, national governments, think tanks and universities. Prior to UNCTAD, she served as the Director of the ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), where she spearheaded major regional cooperation programmes such as the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway initiative, and Regional Drought Monitoring Mechanism.

During her tenure with ESCAP, Ms. Sirimanne also headed the trade facilitation programme, and led the macroeconomic policy work and ESCAP’s flagship publication, Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific. Prior to that, Ms. Sirimanne was with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), where she led the economic policy team and the Economic Report on Africa, the flagship publication of ECA. She has also worked for the Canadian Ministry of Finance and the World Bank. Ms. Sirimanne holds a PhD in Economics.

Dr. David Smith is Co-founder and Director of Quality and Innovation at Smith Warner International Ltd.

David is an expert Coastal Engineer with over 40 years' experience in his field, having an in-depth understanding of natural coastal processes affecting small island states. He has integrated climate change adaptation into coastal design using both "hard", as well as nature-based, coastline protection solutions. His work on complex international marine projects globally, includes port designs, shoreline rehabilitation projects, expert witness testimony cases and island-scale Coastal Zone Management Planning, in Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Arctic.

He is a Senior Lecturer (part-time) in the Faculty of Engineering, UWI, Mona. His registrations and qualifications include: Registered Professional Engineer, Jamaica; Registered Professional Engineer, Ontario, Canada; BSc Civil Engineering (Hons), University of the West Indies; MSc Civil Engineering Hydraulics, University of London; PhD Coastal Engineering, Queen's University, Canada.

Stefanie Sohm has worked in the field of sustainable transport, energy, and climate policy for over a decade. As an independent consultant, she supported development institutions, agencies, and governments in policymaking, project implementation, and stakeholder engagement.

In 2019, after living and working in North Africa for ten years, she expanded her work to the global level.

In July 2023, Stefanie joined the Kühne Foundation's Climate Center as advisor for transport and climate, where she now leads the work programme ‘Transport and Logistics for the Low-Carbon Society of 2050’. The Kühne Foundation is an independent, operational, international philanthropy that works to help decouple the growth of prosperity from greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the transition to a just, low-carbon global society.

Stefanie holds a Master of Business Administration and is about to complete her Master in Transportation Sciences.

Silvia Sorescu is a Policy Analyst in the Emerging Policy Issues Division of the OECD’s Trade and Agriculture Directorate, which she joined in 2010. Silvia is currently the Project Lead for the Directorate’s trade facilitation work, which includes the OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators covering over 160 economies. Her work is focused on mapping the policy environment for trade facilitation and linking trade facilitation issues to digital trade, global supply chains, and sustainability.

Silvia has as well in-depth country-specific experience, working on agro-food trade and domestic policy issues in economies such as China, Colombia, India, and Indonesia.

Prior to joining the OECD, she was a Research Associate at the World Economy Group, an academic research centre at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Paris), working on various trade policy and European Union policy issues.

Since 2018, Karen has been Trade Facilitation Coordinator and Negotiator at the Vice-Ministry of Economic Integration and Foreign Trade (Ministry of Economic Development of Honduras), Coordinator of the National Trade Facilitation Committee of Honduras (CONFACO) and its Technical Secretariat, with an active role at the national, regional, and multilateral levels.

She holds a degree in Business Administration and an MSc in Strategic Marketing, University Teaching, and Military Didactics.

She has undergone extensive training in areas such as economy, foreign trade, customs, and regional and multilateral trade facilitation with the support of international organizations.

Özlem Soysanli is a Senior Technical Officer at the World Customs Organization (WCO) in Brussels, Belgium.

She joined the WCO Compliance and Facilitation Directorate in August 2018. She previously worked in various capacities in the Turkish Customs Administration for over 22 years, mainly in the area of Customs legislation. She also worked as the Customs Counsellor at the Turkish Embassy in Brussels from 2014 to 2018 with the responsibility of representing the Turkish Customs at the WCO as well as at Belgium Customs.

Within the Procedures and Facilitation Sub-Directorate, she is primarily in charge of the Permanent Technical Committee (PTC), the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), the National Trade Facilitation Committees (NCTFs), the WCO Mercator Programme and the WCO Economic Competitiveness Package (ECP). She is also part of the Disruptive Technologies and Smart Customs Projects teams.  

Mr Ian Stewart is a results-driven Port Operations Executive with over 10 years of experience in process improvement and cost optimization, with a proven track record of increasing efficiency and productivity by 20%, while reducing operational costs by 15%. He has a passion for Technology Management and improving systems.

Ian has over 35 years of experience overseeing staff, budgets, Facilities and Port operations. Extremely knowledgeable of the analytics necessary to evaluate a Port's performance and the means to apply them to drive the Port forward and maximize profit, he is a strong leader, a skilled problem solver, environmentally focused and an innovative thinker.

Upon joining Virgin Atlantic in February of 2020 as the Country Manager for the Caribbean, Hannah Swift successfully navigated the pandemic, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes, driving revenues for the region, whilst raising the brand awareness of the airline. She was also instrumental in delivering new route start-ups such as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Nassau, Turks and Caicos, and most recently the airlines Inter-Island services.

Hannah has lived in the Caribbean for ten years, having moved from the U.K. Prior to her move, Hannah owned a successful digital marketing agency, with clients ranging from high street brands such as Thorntons chocolates and Bon Marche, to B2B Fortune500 companies like Farnell. Her expertise in marketing spans affiliate, social content, digital advertising and more, and she is the proud recipient of several industry awards.

Her time in the Caribbean has seen her take on senior roles within an advertising agency, strategically managing the digital presence for well-known brands such as Flow, Sagicor and Banks Beer.

The Hon. Kerrie Symmonds has served as the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade in the government of Barbados since 2022. He is also the Senior Minister coordinating Productive Sector.

Since May 2018, Minister Symmonds has served as Minister of Tourism and International Transport; Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship; and  Minister of Energy and Business Development.