Karen Tramontano, Founder and President: Karen Tramontano served from 1997 to 2000 as Assistant to President Clinton on issues of labor,international trade and development, and various other foreign and domestic issues. While serving as Assistant to President Clinton, Ms.Tramontano was also the Counselor to Chief of Staff John Podesta. Ms. Tramontano is a Senior Advisor to the International Labor Organization’s Director General and a Principal of Dutko Global Advisors. She has also served as Chief of Staff to John Sweeney at SEIU. Ms. Tramontano has experience in local Government, serving as the Chief of Staff to Washington D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly.

Stanley Sylvan Byers, Executive Director: Prior to GFI, Stan worked with the Dept of State Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) to help develop new models for strategic interagency coordination in response to conflict and crisis. Prior to this he served with USAID as a Field Officer at the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and later with the Office of Transition Initiatives as a Field Advisor in southern Sudan. Stan was also a Senior Manager with Kabul-based Altai Consulting, where he directed nationwide surveys on the role of media in Afghan society and the dynamics of the informal private sector, as well as a World Bank assessment of the national investment climate. Other international experience includes an evaluation of participatory governance in the low-income communities of Belo Horizonte and Recife, Brazil and private sector consulting with OntheFrontier in São Paulo. Areas of focus include economic competitiveness, governance, post-conflict stabilization, civil-military relations, and environmental issues. Stan holds a BS in Biology/Ecology from Purdue University and a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

John Audley, Senior Advisor: Before joining GFI, John was a Senior Fellow at the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund, where he worked on trade and development policy issues. Previously, he was founder and director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Trade, Equity and Development Program. During the Clinton Administration, he served as the trade policy coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There, he was responsible for developing and presenting EPA’s positions on U.S. trade policy, and he won a silver medal from the agency for his work developing U.S. trade and environment policy. John Audley has also served as international affairs director of the National Wildlife Federation, and has taught on environment, public policy, and other subjects at Georgetown University, Purdue University, and the University of Maryland.

Salomon Cohen, Project Director, Central America: Salomon Cohen is the former Deputy Foreign Minister of Guatemala and more recently Ambassador - Chief Negotiator for CAFTA. He has represented Guatemala at the United Nations and at various Central America regional institutions. Salomon is a lawyer with a Masters Degree in Development Economics from Boston University, and has conducted post-graduate study in Public Administration for Development at the American University in Washington DC. Salomon is a Fullbright alumni, and the recipient of scholarships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundations.

Whitney Simon, Program Officer. Prior to joining GFI, Whitney spent time working in the Economic and Commercial Section at the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay and as a Graduate Fellow for an international consulting firm specializing in trade and business capacity building. Whitney also spent significant time in Cochabamba, Bolivia were she received a Foundation for Sustainable Development grant for her proposal to organize women in micro and small businesses and helped to establish the Women’s Network of Micro-Entrepreneurs. Other international experience includes teaching English in Taizhou, China and studying labor relations at the University of Seville. Areas of research include international labor standards, corporate social responsibility, and intellectual property rights. Whitney holds a M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Amita Kulkarni, Senior Program Manager (Women’s Trade & Finance Council). Amita comes to GFI from UNICEF’s Regional Office for South Asia where she was a Capacity Building in Evaluation Specialist. Based in Nepal, she managed a project to establish evaluation training programs in leading universities across South Asia. Prior to this, she worked as an Advocacy and Communications Specialist for UNICEF Pakistan’s emergency response to the 2005 earthquake. Amita has also worked at Harvard’s Women and Public Policy Program where she conducted research and advocacy on women’s role in peacebuilding. Areas of focus include program evaluation, children in armed conflict, and gender and security. She is a recipient of the National Security Education Program's (NSEP) David L. Boren Fellowship for Pakistan and the Fulbright Scholarship for Nepal. Amita holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and B.A. in International Affairs from Brown University.

 

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