Welcome Remarks:
Felecia Lucht, Academic Director, and WISLI Director, UW-Madison Language Program Office (LPO)
Panelists:
Lydia Greve, Resource Mobilization and Grant Manager at the World Organisation for Animal Health
Lydia Greve works as a Resource Mobilization and Grant Manager at the World Organisation for Animal Health, an international organization with its HQ in Paris (France). She holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Switzerland) and a B.A. in Political Science and Languages & Cultures of Asia from UW-Madison. During her time at UW-Madison, she took courses in French, Turkish and Hindi. She studied at the SASLI summer Hindi program and spent her junior year in Varanasi, India as a Boren scholar.
Isabelle McRae is a multilingual consultant helping organizations increase their social impact. She specializes in strategic development and project design for NGOs and nonprofits, as well as conducting social research for think tanks and local governments. Her recent work has focused on migration and refugee policy, particularly on labour market inclusion and anti-trafficking. During her undergrad, she studied Turkish and Azerbaijani, and previously served as a resident director for the Critical Language Scholarship and Turkish Overseas Flagship programs. She went on to become a qualified legal interpreter and still regularly works as a language specialist for private and public sector clients. She received her Master’s in Conflict Studies with Distinction from the London School of Economics and her BA in International Affairs and Minor in Turkish Language and Politics from Portland State University. She is based in London.
Charlie Minard, U.S. Country Manager at Merama
Charlie graduated from UW-Madison in 2015 with a major in Accounting. During his time at Madison he received a FLAS Fellowship to study Portuguese. After graduating, he has worked in various strategy and international expansion roles at VC-backed logistics and eCommerce startups in Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. He is trilingual (Spanish & Portuguese) and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He is currently the US Country Manager at Merama, an ecommerce startup in Mexico, and lives in Mexico City.
Katy Sinnott, Vice President of Global Trade & Investment at Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
Katy Sinnott is Vice President of Global Trade and Investment with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). In this role, she is responsible for developing and implementing strategies to grow Wisconsin’s economy in three key areas: helping Wisconsin companies expand and accelerate their exports, expanding and growing key driver industries by working with key stakeholders in the state, and through attracting both foreign and national investment into Wisconsin.
Katy has more two decades of business management and financial services experience, working in more than 40 countries with an emphasis on China. Before joining WEDC, she was the CEO and a board director for ERIC Paris Salons, a chain of salons based in China. Under her leadership as CEO, the company expanded from three salons to 38 in three years. At its peak, the company had revenues of $6 million and 450 employees.
Prior to that, Katy was a consultant in Hong Kong for McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. In this role, she oversaw the merger of two global television tube manufacturers spread across multiple continents and helped design a customer loyalty program for China’s second-largest oil company. Katy also held several positions in Hong Kong with HSBC Ltd., one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations. She is experienced in redesigning bank business processes and ensuring information services are business-driven.
A Wisconsin native, Katy holds a BS in finance from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. After college, she was awarded a scholarship to attend the Chinese University of Hong Kong through Yale University, where she completed a nine-month intensive studies course in Mandarin. She is conversant in Chinese and French.
Moderator:
Amani DeHolton, Intern Abroad Advisor and Program Manager, UW-Madison International Academic Programs (IAP)
Chat Moderator:
Chris Carlson, WISLI Program Coordinator with primary focus on SIPI & NORD