H.E. Albert M. Muchanga is the Commissioner for Trade and Industry of the African Union Commission. Ambassador Muchanga was the Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office in charge of Parliamentary Affairs in Zambia. As part of his diplomatic service, he was Zambia’s Ambassador to Brazil and Ethiopia, with extra accreditation to the African Union Commission. He was also Deputy Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community from 2001 to 2005. He has dealt transnationally with issues broadly related to international economic policy analysis, regional integration, foreign policy analysis, and implementation. He has been a Guest of Honor and Speaker at numerous Pan-African and International Conferences on issues related to African economic integration, multilateral trade negotiations, globalization, youth and women empowerment, sustainable development, management, and leadership, and others.

Jennifer G. Cooke is director of the Institute for African Studies at The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. The Institute serves as central hub for research, scholarly discussion, and debate on issues relevant to Africa. She is a professor of practice in international affairs, teaching courses on U.S. Policy Toward Africa and Transnational Security Threats in Africa.

Prior to joining GW, Cooke spent 18 years directing the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she led research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. She directed projects on including on violent extremist organizations in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, China’s growing role in Africa, democracy and elections in Nigeria, religion and state authority in Africa, “stress-testing” state stability in Africa, Africa’s changing energy landscape, and more. She has testified before Congress on multiple occasions and provided senior-level briefing to officials at the State Department, AFRICOM and the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Defense Intelligence Agency, European, Asian, and African government officials, corporations, media outlets, and students. Prior to CSIS, she worked at the National Academy of Sciences and the House Subcommittee on Africa.

Rosa Whitaker, CEO/President of TWG, is a visionary, entrepreneur, former US government policy leader, career diplomat and trade negotiator with a progressive record of achievement driving investments into Africa. Notably, she served as America’s first-ever Assistant US Trade Representative in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Named as one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, Rosa is broadly recognized as a leading expert on African trade and business engagement.

While serving as a Senior Trade Advisor to US Congressman Charlie Rangel (Former Chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee), Rosa was one of the key architects that crafted the historic African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was enacted in 2000. AGOA, America’s first comprehensive trade law towards Africa, now spanning the administrations of four US Presidents, remains the cornerstone of US economic policy towards Africa. It has delivered, inter-alia, billions of dollars in duty free products from Africa into the US market annually while also generating jobs and investments across the Continent.

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Joshua Snead currently serves as Chief Trade Counsel to the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives. He advises Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith (R-NE) on trade matters, including negotiation and implementation of trade agreements, bilateral relationships with U.S. trading partners, and preference programs for developing countries.

Before joining the Committee staff in 2016, Mr. Snead was in private practice at King & Spalding in Washington, DC, specializing in trade litigation and policy. Previously, he represented U.S. pork producers on trade policy matters as an International Trade Specialist at the National Pork Producers Council.

Mr. Snead holds a JD and an MBA from Pepperdine University, and a Bachelor of Arts in

in Philosophy.

Tony Carroll is a lawyer, investment and development consultant, academic and philanthropic advisor who has spent four decades championing Africa social and economic interests across the globe.  In 1997, he was an original member of an ad hoc Congressional Working Group convened by Congressman Jim McDermott and Mike Williams that was the genesis of AGOA.  He has worked with a variety of law firms and consulting agencies in such areas as mining, oil and gas, textiles, agro-processing, ICT, money remittances, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics and IPR/technology transfer. He is a co-founder of the Mining Indaba, Acorus Capital, Global HOPE (Hematology Oncology Project Excellence) and Rosewood Global Advisors and is a board member of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund in Geneva, Switzerland. He was a Vice President at Manchester Trade and an adjunct professor at JHU/SAIS for twenty and ten years, respectively and served on the Africa advisory boards at USTR, OPIC (now DFC) and EXIM Bank.

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