Kati Suominen

Kati Suominen is an adjunct fellow with the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and focuses especially on digitization, disruptive technologies, and trade. She is also the founder and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Nextrade Group, which helps governments, multilateral development banks, and Fortune 500 technology companies enable trade through technology. Nextrade's clients include the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Mastercard, Visa, Google, and eBay, among many others. Dr. Suominen has built dozens of data and analytical products and pilot initiatives, as well as eight global initiatives and public-private partnerships to enable digital trade, the most recent being the Alliance for eTrade Development I and II between 14 leading companies and USAID to enable small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) e-commerce in developing nations. She also serves as adjunct professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Earlier in her career, she was a trade economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. Suominen is the author and editor of over 100 papers and 10 peer-reviewed books with leading academic presses, most recently Revolutionizing World Trade: How Disruptive Technologies Open Opportunities for All (Stanford University Press, 2019). She holds a BA from the University of Arkansas, an MA from Boston University, an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and a PhD from the University of California San Diego. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.