Dr. Deborah Elms

Founder and Executive Director

Dr. Deborah Elms is the Founder and Executive Director of the Asian Trade Centre and the President of the Asia Business Trade Association.

Concurrently, she is a member of APCO’s International Advisory Council, the G20 Trade and Investment Research Network, and the Advisory Board of the Trade and Investment Negotiation Adviser at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. She is also a Research Associate at the New Zealand APEC Study Centre and a Senior Fellow of the Ministry of Trade and Industry Academy of Singapore.

Dr. Elms has extensive experience working with governments, international organizations, businesses, and the academe and is one of the leading experts on trade policy in the region. She was also active in her past leadership posts in international trade groups having served on the Trade and Investment Council of the World Economic Forum from 2017 to 2019, the International Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Trade Professionals Alliance, as well as being the chair of its Working Group on Trade Policy and Law.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Elms was head of the Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade and Negotiations and Senior Fellow of International Political Economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Dr. Elms holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington, an MA in international relations from the University of Southern California, and bachelor’s degrees from Boston University. Dr. Elms frequently appears in the media to provide expert analysis on trade issues in the region and publishes the Talking Trade Blog.

Jia Hui Tee

Senior Analyst

Jia Hui manages the delivery of research and consulting for markets in Asia. Her area of research in trade and market access issues encapsulates country specific regulations for foreign businesses including investment and business laws as well as tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. Jia Hui was also involved in research on digital trade issues in the Asia Pacific region including workstreams under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and digital agreements such as The Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) and the Singapore Australia Digital Economy Agreement (DEA). Jia Hui also specializes in data analysis on bilateral trade volume patterns and tariffs for countries in the ASEAN region and is experienced in handling firm-level data from surveys and databases. Besides research, Jia Hui leads the training development for businesses in Singapore. She develops resources and training curriculum for businesses on trade compliance and how to comply with FTAs rules of origin to attain tariff benefits.

Andrew Crosby

Fellow

Andrew joined the Asian Trade Centre as a Fellow in March 2019. He works with global policy stakeholders in understanding the emerging dynamics and policy responses for growth and sustainability brought about by digitization, servicification, intangible assets, and advanced communications.

His work has focused on enabling, facilitating, and supporting global and regional policymakers in generating responsive trade and investment policies that enable them to pursue sustainability and competitiveness demands while adapting to changing structures of production and trade. As the founding Programmes Director and later Managing Director at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) he contributed to forming ICTSD’s globally recognized, high-impact programmes, particularly in leading the organization’s work in e-commerce, innovation and IP, trade in services, and co-leading on inclusive economic transformation and G20 and global governance. He also led ICTSD’s communications, including the widely acclaimed Bridges series of publications. Previously, he was the founding employee of the American Political Network which launched the first national daily political news service in the United States, the HOTLINE, in 1987 and later worked as a strategic consultant for political and corporate strategy.

He is a graduate of the Harvard, John F. Kennedy School of Government (Master in Public Administration, 1996) and New York University (Bachelor of Arts, 1985). He is a citizen of the USA and currently resides in Geneva, Switzerland.

Dr. Sherry M. Stephenson

Senior Fellow

Sherry is an international trade policy expert and was a Senior Fellow with the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) in Geneva until the end of 2018. At the ICTSD she was responsible for the services programme and involved in the e15 Expert Groups on Services and Global Value Chains. Prior to that, she was Senior Advisor for Services Trade at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C. and served as Director of the Department of Trade during several years of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations. She has been an Advisor to the Minister of Trade in Indonesia and held positions with the OECD as well as with the GATT and UNCTAD Secretariats. She is currently a member of the T20 Trade, Investment and Growth Task Force, supporting the G20 process. For four years she participated in the Global Trade Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum and has been continuously involved in the international trade policy initiatives of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), including providing support to the APEC process, for 25 years. She has advised governments on trade policy issues and taught courses in universities in the United States, Switzerland, France, India and Indonesia, and has led workshops and lectured in several countries in the Asia Pacific, African and Latin American regions. Her publications address in particular services trade, global value chains, regional economic integration and labor mobility. She has edited three volumes on services trade and reform and published more than sixty articles. She received a Ph.D. in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and a Masters in Economics from New York University.

Margaret Liang

Senior Fellow

Margaret joined ATC as a Senior Fellow in 2015. She is currently Consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) for WTO/Trade Issues; Adjunct Professor of the National University of Singapore Law Faculty; Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Rajaratnam School of International Relations, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, and Senior Fellow of the MFA Diplomatic Academy. Previously, she served as Director (Trade Policy) of the Singapore Trade Development Board and subsequently as Director of the International Economics Directorate, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has served in Singapore Missions in Bonn and in Geneva, and was Singapore’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN/WTO in Geneva from 1999-2002. Ms Liang has considerable experience in international trade law cases before the GATT/WTO, both as advocate and panelist/Chairman. She was member of the Singapore team in the WTO dispute settlement case on Singapore/Malaysia-Import measures on certain petrochemical products. Her other key WTO appointments included being Chairman of the WTO Working Party on the ACP-EC Partnership Agreement (the Coutonou Agreement) in 2001 and Vice-Chairman of the WTO Committee on Regional Trade Agreements in 2002. She has contributed to major academic/WTO seminars and conducted WTO Trade Policy courses at the International Development Law Organisation, Sydney, the Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade Negotiations, Singapore, and under Singapore’s Technical assistance programmes for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam and other Developing Countries. She was also the Academic Coordinator for the WTO Regional Trade Policy Course, for Asia- Pacific, a joint cooperation between the WTO and the National University of Singapore from 2008-2010.

Russell Scoular

Senior Fellow

Russell is a highly-knowledgeable business executive with extensive experience in the global automotive industry, trade policy and industry engagement with governments. Prior to his founding of Chatto Creek Advisory, Russell spent 32 years in senior management positions with the Ford Motor Company in New Zealand, Australia and China. He used to serve as the regional director of government affairs for Asia Pacific at Ford. In a 32-year automotive industry career specializing in government, trade and public policy issues, Russell served as vice president of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries 2003-2006 and chaired the chamber's government policy advisory committee from 2006-2011. He has also served as chair of the City of Hume's Economic Development Committee. In his senior leadership positions, Russell has attended and presented papers at a number of parliamentary inquiries and in international forums including APEC Automotive Dialogues, Trans-Pacific Partnership Stakeholder Forums, AmCham Forums in China and CO2 Conferences in Thailand. Russell is a graduate of Monash University with a Master of Public Policy and Management degree.