Lynda House-McPeters currently serves as Director – Carrier Relations, Wholesale/Global Service Delivery – AT&T. In this position she serves as the point of escalation for Service Delivery and Service Assurance issues for all AT&T Wholesale services that require specialized intervention so that roadblocks that impede problem resolution are removed. Under her leadership her team acts as the Customer’s advocate for any concerns and escalations across Ordering, Provisioning and Maintenance. As the owner of the overall Customer Experience, Lynda is required to interact with the Sales teams as well as numerous other internal AT&T departments so that the customers’ interests have the appropriate attention within AT&T. In addition, she is responsible for hosting regular Executive Meetings with Customers where the delivery of Customer specific Stewardship reporting is done. Lynda is accountable for driving the development of Root Cause Analysis Reports, Service Action Plans and Process Improvements to resolve immediate and systemic service delivery and maintenance issues. Lynda leads a team of professional Service Executives and Managers who are strategically located throughout the United States and Bratislava, Slovakia.

Celia Israel was elected to the Texas Legislature in January 2014 in a special election to represent House District 50. Currently Celia serves on the House Ways & Means and International Trade & Intergovernmental Affairs Committees. She is the owner of Mission Resources, a consulting firm focusing on public affairs and real estate. Raised in El Paso, Texas, Celia moved to the Austin area in 1982 to attend the University Texas at Austin. After graduating with a degree in Government, Celia served in Gov. Ann Richards’s administration, tasked with recruiting the best and brightest to public service. Celia serves on the boards of the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance for Public Transportation, a local nonprofit promoting mass transit options and opportunities in Central Texas. She also is a member of both the Corridor Task Force and Mobility 35, both of which focus on Central Texas transportation solutions. She’s tackled issues from Central Texas growth to school safety, and led at the community level to empower young girls as a Board member of GEN Austin. She was a past board member of the Austin YWCA. Celia lives with her long-time partner, Celinda Garza, in North East Travis County.

President
Radial Drilling Services, Inc.

Mr. Jelsma is an inventor and developed the innovative radial drilling technology that is used today throughout the world. RDS is a Houston-based service company involved in the design, manufacturing, operating and servicing of its proprietary radial drilling technology for oil & gas rehabilitation and production optimization. Mr. Jelsma also presently owns Dominion Oil (USA) Corp, which operates oil and gas assets in Kansas. Mr. Jelsma has also served as the COO of Aurado Energy Inc. and President of Liman Caspian Oil BV where he managed the start-up, organization, seismic, drilling and production activities of the companies in Kazakhstan. Previously, Mr. Jelsma was Senior VP for Seagull Energy Corp., a US-based independent oil & gas company, and he managed the most profitable and successful joint venture in Russia to date between a U.S. oil & gas company and a Russian oil company, known as Tatex. Mr. Jelsma supervised for the Tatex JV the drilling of 80 wells and built production to 8400 bopd resulting in annual revenues of $80 million. Mr. Jelsma is also past President and CEO of Dominion Energy PLC, a UK-listed oil & gas producing company. Mr. Jelsma is a graduate Ingenieur-Geologue of Ecole Nationale Superieure France and holds an Executive MBA from Rice University. Mr. Jelsma’s educational background and 35 years experience in the oil & gas industry in the areas of drilling and drilling technology, field exploration development and production, revitalization of oil fields and operations experience in remote and difficult areas has served him well and has helped him achieve rapid growth with his radial drilling technology.

Peter Kolesar is the Trade and Innovation Counselor at the Embassy of Slovakia in Washington, D.C. He focuses on promoting expansion of Slovak companies to the US market, attracting foreign direct investment to Slovakia and supporting innovation collaboration between Slovakia and the US.

He previously served as a Commercial Counselor at the Slovak Embassy in Tel Aviv. Prior to moving to foreign service he worked as a Senior Consultant at Candole Partners, a CEE public policy and regulatory consulting firm, where he advised FT Global 500 clients out of the Bratislava office.

Peter holds a Master degree in international political economy from the Central European University in Budapest and MA-equivalent in international relations from Masaryk University in Brno. He was a scholar at Bard College, New York.

Contact: peter.kolesar@mzv.sk

Wouter Last is a no-nonsense, enthusiastic, radiant people person. For Wouter, relationships are central. After studying Information Technology, working at Shell(NAM) & 30 years of experience in the Oil & Gas /Petrochemical Industry he is now focusing on the quickly diminishing line between IT and Automation Control. His ability to provide great work is due to his characteristics. Entrepreneurship, enthusiasm, customer focus, quality, and integrity play a crucial role. As a professional, he takes a flexible and creative approach to new challenges. Wouter values a compact enterprise where colleagues communicate well and pursue common goals.

Lorraine McCord is the Creative Director and Founder of Xworks Project an online international business blog, training and consulting platform. Prior to starting Xworks Project, she served for 10 years as the Director of the North Texas International Trade Center SBDC where she was responsible for providing training, counseling and market research services to businesses in the North Texas areas as well as managing a team of advisors who helped hundreds of companies achieve export sales totaling $50 million. She has more than 10 years experience working for Fortune 500 companies such as EDS and Regions Bank in strategy and planning, international finance and internal audit.  Lorraine has worked and traveled extensively in the Asia Pacific region and has spoken extensively at national and international conferences on the topics of small business and international trade. She currently serves on the faculty of Richland College’s International Business and Trade division. Lorraine previously served on the board of governors of the North American Small Business and International Trade Educators (NASBITE) and the Dallas Furniture Bank. She holds a MBA in International Management from Thunderbird in Glendale, AZ and is both a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and a Certified Global Business Professional (CGBP).

Georgios Papanikolaou , Consul General of Greece

Accepted his duties on October 18, 2011.
He was born in Athens in 1975.
He has studied International Relations and International Economy at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, (1993-97), at the University of Nice, France (1997-98), and has completed his studies with an MA in International Economic and Monetary Relations from the American University and Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA (1998-2000).

Working experience:

2003 – 2005 Marketing consultant 2005 Joined the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affair
2005 – 2006 Served at the Greek Diplomatic Academy in Athens, Greece
2006 – 2007 Deputy Head of Mission and Consul at the Embassy of Greece in Kinshasa, DRC
2007 – 2008 Stationed at the Special Secretariat of the Greek MFA for the Development of International Program
2008 – 2011 Deputy Head of Mission and Consul at the Embassy of Greece in Baku, Azerbaijan He is married to Mrs. Afshana Danishani.