Pathways: Careers in International Affairs, Agriculture, Business and Trade

The WITA Academy Pathways program consists of a series of career pathways sessions hosted by trade professionals from the Washington D.C. policy community. The curriculum, divided between the public and private sector, highlights different roles and career paths that are available in Washington D.C. and around the world.

Students will gain insight from trade professionals, pose questions to policymakers, and learn about exciting career opportunities in international affairs, political science, business, and trade. Students come away with an understanding of the trade policy-making community, the role of its key players, and the opportunities for internships and careers available to them.

This online event is free and open to ALL students. Hosted in partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Yeutter Institute.

Registration is free for students and faculty – must use university email to register.

Program Agenda:

Speaker Biographies

Ben Conner is a partner at DTB AgriTrade. He joined the firm in 2019, after spending a decade at an agricultural trade association and as a staffer in the U.S. Senate. Ben helps clients pursue their agricultural trade policy goals through assistance with international trade negotiations, monitoring and analyzing compliance with trade commitments, enforcing trade rules, and engaging with governments and international organizations on policy issues related to agricultural trade.

Prior to joining DTB, Ben was the Vice President of Policy at U.S. Wheat Associates (USW), where he worked with farmers, USW’s foreign offices, USDA, USTR, and related industry to improve market access by addressing tariffs, trade-restrictive sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and other non-tariff barriers to U.S. wheat exports.

Ben joined USW after serving as the agriculture and trade legislative assistant for U.S. Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska. During his time in that position, Ben championed the Senator’s priorities for the 2014 farm bill, such as creating the position of Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs. He also assisted with the Senator’s push for ratification of free trade agreements, and coordinated support for the inclusion of Japan in the Trans-Pacific Partnership pending resolution of the BSE-related restrictions on beef from cattle under thirty months.

In 2014, Ben completed a joint MS-MBA in food and agribusiness management from Purdue University and Indiana University. He also has a master’s degree in international commerce and policy from George Mason University and was an undergraduate at Miami University in Ohio.

Kristy Goodfellow is the Vice President of Trade and Industry Affairs at the Corn Refiners Association. As CRA’s Vice President of Trade and Industry Affairs, Kristy Goodfellow provides strategic and tactical leadership to CRA and its members on trade policy, statistical and co-products reporting programs, transportation issues, and industry affairs.

Kristy is a proven agriculture trade policy professional with experience negotiating and enforcing bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. She has significant technical expertise in agricultural market access, including tariffs, agricultural subsidies, import licensing, dispute settlement, and other aspects of policies that matter to the corn refining industry and the wider agriculture community.

Prior to joining CRA, Kristy served as the Director of World Trade Organization (WTO) Affairs at the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). In that role, Kristy collaborated with U.S. agriculture industry groups to ensure the coordination of global trade positions. She led the teams supporting WTO negotiations, WTO committee-level enforcement, WTO dispute settlement, and review of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade that were notified to the WTO.

Kristy’s experience also includes serving as: Deputy Director at USDA, FAS, Office of Agreements and Scientific Affairs where she represented the U.S. at the WTO Committee on Agriculture and oversaw staff working on bilateral enforcement; and as Senior Trade Advisor at FAS where she worked extensively on trade barriers in Canada and Mexico and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations.

Kristy is the recipient of numerous professional honors including a 2022 FAS Administrator Award for work on the WTO 12th Ministerial Conference and a 2020 Secretary’s Honor Award for her outstanding contributions to American Agriculture through the USMCA negotiation.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics and business administration from Coe College and a Master of Public Policy with an emphasis on global policy from the University of Minnesota. She is originally from Iowa, where her family farms.

Kellie Meiman Hock, Senior Counselor, founded the firm’s trade and Brazil/Southern Cone practices, helping over one-hundred companies to pursue global opportunities and troubleshoot obstacles to market access since joining McLarty in March 2000.

Prior to joining McLarty, she served for almost a decade as a US Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State, serving in Bogota, Colombia, and throughout Brazil in Porto Alegre, São Paulo, and Recife, as well as at the Office of the US Trade Representative in the Executive Office of the President.

For over three decades, Kellie has worked on Latin America and on various aspects of trade, investment, and technology policy, helping companies to manage geopolitical uncertainty and industrial policy, from local content requirements to data localization and trade remedies. Kellie has been deeply engaged in stakeholder efforts to manage a dynamic global trade agenda and increased economic nationalism. She has also helped many companies to internationalize their public policy operations and to develop global expansion plans. She has lived and studied in Central America and Japan.

Kellie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Advisory Councils of the University of Nebraska Yeutter Institute and the Midwest International Trade Association. She is on the Board of Directors for the Inter-American Dialogue and chairs the Women’s Foreign Policy Group Leadership Council. An adjunct professor at Georgetown University, she often writes and speaks on policy matters related to trade/investment/industrial policy, Brazil, and Latin America. Kellie is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and fluently speaks Spanish and Portuguese.

Cassandra Kuball is a Vice President at Torrey Advisory Group. Cassandra’s passion for advocating on behalf of agriculture started on her family’s dairy farm in Minnesota, where she helped provide tours to the community and state representatives. The drive to share the story of food and agriculture ultimately brought her to Washington, D.C. and the Torrey Advisory Group where she serves clients on a range of issues affecting the industry with a focus on international trade.  

Cassandra is also skilled at bringing people together as demonstrated with the establishment of an industry-wide coalition around the renegotiation of NAFTA that brought all agricultural stakeholders to the table and successfully advocated for the agreement. As a coalition leader, she made sure to incorporate different perspectives, ensuring buy-in along the way. With clients, she helps them map out the end goal for the year, such as moving an issue legislatively, and is skilled at determining the incremental steps to achieve those goals.  

Cassandra received her master’s degree in international commerce and policy from the George Mason University School of Public Policy and a bachelor’s degree in agricultural industries and marketing from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. She currently serves as the co-chair of the Agriculture, Energy & Environment programming section of the Women in International Trade (WIIT) DC Chapter. When she isn’t working with clients, Cassandra’s favorite motivational podcast is How I Built This as it dives into the mindset and drive of innovators and entrepreneurs. 

Devry Boughner Vorwerk is the Founder and CEO of Stewardverse Strategies. She was raised in the Salinas Valley of California. Growing up in a small farm town she began to understand at a young age that the world was interconnected, especially when it came to feeding people. She carried her passion for feeding the world with her into university and graduate school where she majored in agricultural and managerial economics at the University of California at Davis, and completed her Master of Science in Agricultural Economics, with a specialization in public policy and international trade at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Devry is a well-known global food executive and corporate officer, having served as Chief Communications Officer and Global Head of Corporate Affairs at Cargill and as Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Grubhub. She is also a sustainability entrepreneur, founding Stewardverse Strategies, her own strategy and advisory company, and serving on the Advisory Board of Culinary Sciences, Inc.

Devry is an international business development and diplomacy strategist as well as an expert in international trade relations, demonstrated by her success as senior policy advisor at Akin Gump; leader in international and regional corporate affairs roles at Cargill; and in roles at the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Office of the US Trade Representative, and the World Bank Group.

Devry was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2014 and was named one of the world’s top 100 global communicators in 2017, 2018 and 2019 by the influential Holmes Report. Currently, Devry is a committee member of U.S.-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. In 2020, Devry was designated a senior fellow at The Conference Board and brought on as special advisor to Global Citizen, a non-profit that has mobilized more than $45 billion to fight extreme poverty. In 2021 Devry joined the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide, one of the largest global advisory and advocacy firms based in the United States.

Today, she enjoys life in Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and two children. In her spare time, Devry enjoys spending time with family and friends, is an elementary school track coach, and is an active member of her local church.

Ken Levinson serves as the Chief Executive Officer of WITA – The International Trade Membership Association and Washington International Trade Foundation. 

WITA is the world’s largest non-profit, non-partisan membership organization dedicated to providing a neutral forum for the open and robust discussion of international trade policy and economic issues. WITA and its affiliated groups have over 10,000 members, and more than 160 corporate sponsors and group memberships.

Ken has over 30 years of experience working with companies, associations, NGOs and governments, advocating innovative solutions to complex public policy challenges. Over the years, Ken has worked with clients in the technology, telecommunications, biopharmaceuticals, agriculture and food, financial services, retail, apparel, energy, and consumer products sectors.

Previously, Ken served as Senior Director for Global Government Affairs for AstraZeneca. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Ken served as Senior Vice President and COO at the Washington, DC consulting firm of Fontheim International. Ken joined Fontheim after spending six years on the staff of U.S. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV.  Ken advised the Senator on foreign policy and national security matters, and served as the Senator’s chief advisor on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, dealing with issues related to international trade and tax policy.

Ken received his Master’s Degree from New York University after doing his undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst. Ken also spent a year studying at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Ken and his wife, The Reverend Donna Marsh, live in River Forest, IL.

Bringing Trade Education and Career Development Opportunities to Communities Across the United States and Around the World

The mission of the WITA Academy™ is to provide trade education and career development opportunities in international trade to individuals across the United States and around the world. By expanding the network, the WITA Academy™ builds a stronger and more dynamic trade community.

The WITA Academy™ is a program of the Washington International Trade Foundation. Through its programs, the WITA Academy is committed to strengthening the trade community by bringing together a broad range of perspectives and creating opportunities for engagement amongst the trade community. These educational and professional development programs ensure the continued growth and success of the trade community, shaping the future of trade policy.

Thank you to our WITA Academy Sponsors

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