Featured Speakers
Gloria Steele, USAID Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Asia (Opening Remarks)
Gloria Steele is a career member of the U.S. Senior Executive Services, currently serving as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Asia. She oversees USAID’s operations across 30 countries in Asia. Prior to this role she served as the USAID Mission Director for the Philippines.
Brian Finlay, President and CEO, the Stimson Center
Brian Finlay is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Stimson Center. Under his tenure since 2016, Stimson has transformed its business model, launched pioneering new engagements across Asia, and industry-defining programming on environmental security, renewable energy, and technology.
Nancy Yuan, Senior Vice President, The Asia Foundation
Nancy Yuan is senior vice president and director of The Asia Foundation’s Washington, DC office. Her responsibilities include representation to the U.S. government, diplomatic community, Congress, policy community and private sector; policy input, and program liaison with 18 offices in Asia, the San Francisco headquarters; and programming in Asian affairs in Washington.
Mary Melnyk, Environmental Security and Resilience Team Leader, USAID Bureau for Asia
Dr. Mary Melnyk is the Environmental Security and Resilience Team Leader for the USAID’s Asia Bureau and has 30 years experience working on community development, biodiversity conservation and the environment in Latin America and Asia. She has been in the Asia Bureau since 2001 and is currently engaged in USAID efforts to promote environmental and social safeguards as a part of infrastructure development, water security in the Mekong, and the conservation of tigers and snow leopards. She has also developed and facilitated public-private sector alliances linking environmentally-sustainable and socially-responsible products to markets. Past work has included a body of research analyzing forest conflict in Asia. Her Ph.D. is in ecological management from Imperial College of the University of London and quantified the economic and nutritional values of forest foods to rural livelihoods in Southern Venezuela. She graduated summa cum laude with her B.S. in zoology from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Brian Eyler, Southeast Asia Program Director, The Stimson Center
Brian Eyler is a Senior Fellow and Director of Stimson’s Southeast Asia program. Eyler is an expert on transboundary issues in the Mekong region and specializes in China’s economic cooperation with Southeast Asia. He has spent more than 15 years living and working in China and over the last ten years has conducted extensive research with stakeholders in the Mekong region, leading numerous study tours through China and mainland Southeast Asia.
Regan Kwan, Southeast Asia Program Research Associate, The Stimson Center
Regan Kwan is a research associate with the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center. His research focuses on the environmental and socioeconomic impact of energy infrastructure development in the Greater Mekong Subregion.
E. Brooke Whitaker, Chief of Party for USAID Mekong Safeguards, The Asia Foundation
Brooke Whitaker is the Chief of Party of USAID Mekong Safeguards, which is led by The Asia Foundation. Previously, Brooke was DCOP and generation director of USAID’s Power Africa Uganda Accelerator during which he advised over 50 project developers on addressing a wide range of issues from permitting and licensing, which included addressing Uganda’s environmental and social requirements to obtaining bank financing. Before that, Brooke had advised the UK’s DFID on developing multiple programming strategies to attract private investment in Africa and Asia, and worked on USAID’s Power Distribution Project in Pakistan where he advised the Pakistan government on attracting private investment to Pakistan’s energy sector. Brooke started in international development having come from the private equity and corporate finance advisory sectors. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a BS in finance from the University of Maryland. Brooke is a Qualified Listed Entity Director in Singapore, and is a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors.