Tomasz Sowa is the deputy head of the Trade and Investment Section in the Embassy of Poland in Washington D.C. He received his M.Sc. from Warsaw University of Technology and by training he is a production engineer. His portfolio in the Trade and Investment Section covers trade policy, trade promotion and support for trade mission and companies entering the American market.

Before posting to the Embassy he worked for the Trade Policy Department in the Ministry of Economy and was in charge of international trade analysis as well as impact assessment of trade policy measures. Previously to the Ministry he worked for a few financial institutions and was responsible for financial planning and controlling. He currently resides in Bethesda with his wife Monika and their three year old Izabela.

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.

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

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.

Tomáš Hart has been an Economic Counsellor at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington, D.C. since August 2013. He was an Economic Counsellor in New York in 2007-2011. He also worked for Embassy of the Czech Republic in Belgrade in 2000-2005 as an Economic Attache.

In the years of 2006-2007 he worked as an advisor to the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade. From September 2011 to April 2012 he was an advisor to the General Manager at CzechTrade, trade promotion agency of Czech Republic. From June 2012 to July 2013 he was a Secretary to the Economic Section of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

Prior to working for Czech govermnent, he worked as a Marketing and Sales Manager of a Swedish company GCE Autogen in Chotebor, Czech Republic.

Tomas Hart graduated from two universities: Technical University in Saint-Petersburg, Russia (1995) and Prague’s University of Economics (2004). He also holds an MBA from University of New York in Prague (2013).

EDUCATION                                                                    Master of International Relations, 2004, CCNY, City University of New York, USA
Bachelor of Business Administration, 1991, College of International Trade, Budapest Business School, Hungary
Bachelor of Arts in Russian Language and Literature, 1986, College of Education, University of Szeged, Hungary
Bachelor of Arts in English and Hungarian Language and Literature, College of Education, University of  Pecs, Hungary

POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

Leadership program on Japan, 2008, Scholarship of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan
Studies in Trade and Investment Diplomacy, 1998, University of Oxford, University of Birmingham, British Know How Fund, Hungary
Foreign Investment Promotion Studies, 1998, Scholarship of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan
Japanese Foreign Trade Promotion Program, 1997, University of Kobe, Scholarship of the Government of Japan, Japan
English Language and Literature Program, 1990, Scholarship from the British Council, United Kingdom

WORK EXPERIENCE

2011-Present   First Counselor, Head of the Hungarian Economic Representatives in the U.S., Embassy of Hungary, Washington, DC,                                            Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2005-2011        Director, Bilateral economic relations with BRIC and overseas developed countries, Ministry for National Economy, Hungary
2004-2005       Trade Commissioner, Hungarian Trade Commission, Chicago, USA
1999-2003        Deputy Trade Commissioner, Hungarian Trade Commission, New York, USA, Embassy of Hungary,
1987-1999          Counselor, Desk Officer for USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, New-Zealand, previously involved in IBRD, EBRD, IMF issues and topics,                                      Ministry of Economy, Budapest, Hungary
1980-1987          Teacher Jozsef Attila Junior High School, Hodmezovasarhely, Hungary

FURTHER WORK EXPERIENCE

Lecturer: International Economics in English at the Budapest Business School, Hungary
Translator and Interpreter for the Office of Immigration and Nationality of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Hungary

Philippe Yvergniaux was appointed President of the Invest in France Agency (IFA) in North America in September 2009. In this role, he is charged with leading efforts to promote France as an ideal business destination for North American businesses looking to expand in the European market.

Having worked in foreign investment and development more than 20 years, Yvergniaux brings with him a combination of global field work and leadership experience. In his most recent post with the Agency, Mr. Yvergniaux served as the director of the UK and Ireland office.

Prior to joining IFA, Mr. Yvergniaux served as Chief Executive Officer of NFX, the IFA regional partner representing the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (Northern France) region, from 1998 to 2005.
From 1993 to 1998, he was Director for International Projects at Ouest-Atlantique, the IFA partner for Western France (Bretagne, Pays de Loire and Poitou-Charentes) Mr. Yvergniaux also worked in Indonesia, Haiti, Africa and South America as a civil engineer for various rural development, road construction and irrigation projects.

Mr. Yvergniaux received a degree in engineering from the renowned Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, holds a Ph.D. in mechanics from INP Grenoble, and is an alumnus of the IHEDATE-Paris (Higher Institute for Territorial Planning and Regional Development in Europe). He is Ingénieur Général of the Corps de Ponts, des Eaux et des Forêts (French Corps of civil engineers). He is married with 4 children.

James Clad consults for energy and investment firms, and is senior adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses and at Jane’s Defence and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). During 2002-10, he served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia, and as senior counselor at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Agency for International Development. From 1995-2002 he held a Georgetown University Luce foundation professorship and was, concurrently, Director/Asia-Pacific Energy at CERA.

Trained as a New Zealand lawyer, his career has focused on Asian commercial and security affairs broadening after 2002 to include the Middle East. In the 1980s-90s, he wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review, and had fellowships from St. Antony’s College, Oxford, from the Carnegie Endowment, and from Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. He also served in the New Zealand diplomatic service.

His first book, Business, Money & Power in Southeast Asia (1991), surveyed Asian capitalism while his next, After the Crusade (1996), critiqued US foreign policy. His most recent book is a volume on political geography, The Borderlands of Southeast Asia. He received the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Award in 2009 and, in June 2011, became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, a royal honor. He is married to Aurora Medina, a World Bank official, and has three children.