Issues & AdvocacyIssues & Advocacy

Working Abroad in India – Pros, Cons, & Ways Forward

The AIA and the AIA New York Chapter are hosting a half-day training for Working Abroad in India – Pros, Cons, & Ways Forward.

Registration—Click Here!

The AIA has been working closely with the US Department of Commerce on the October 2012 Trade Mission to India. This training will assist firms and members by connecting them with members who have done work in India, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the US Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Small Business Administration.

Attendees will learn about the market opportunities available in India and other international markets, the resources that are provided by the Federal government and how to use those resources. Attendees will also learn about problems that can occur in foreign markets and how business practices differ from the United States.

The AIA will give 3 learning units for this program.

Who Should Attend:

• Firms who are successful applicants to the Trade Mission

• Firms who were unsuccessful applicants to the Trade Mission

• Firms who are interested in moving their firms abroad

Agenda:

1pm Welcome

1:05pm-2:05pm Discussion with AIA members about their experiences working abroad in India

§ Suman Sorg, FAIA, Founder of Sorg Architects

§ Mark Erdly, AIA, Principal, Cannon Design

2:05pm-2:20pm Networking Break

2:20pm-3:20pm Commerce Panel with Eugene Alford and Dawn Bruno

Eugene Alford: HQ Commerce—relationship between AIA and ITA

Dawn Bruno: Overview of the work—best prospect markets and information about opportunities in India

Q&A

3:20pm-3:35pm Networking Break

3:35pm-4:50pm Federal Financial and Fiscal Resources

OPIC: Alison Gatchev

EX-IM: Bruce Drossman

SBA: Toni Corsini

4:50pm-5:20pm Wrap Up Q&A with All Panelists

Networking to Begin After the Q&A

Speaker Biographies:

Suman Sorg:

Suman Sorg, FAIA founded Sorg Architects in Washington, DC in 1986 and continues as president and principal designer of this 60-person firm. A native of India, Suman’s work has always included international commissions, particularly with the US Department of State and other federal government clients. Over the past several years, Sorg has built a portfolio of projects in India that includes large scale multifamily housing and office buildings. The firm’s involvement in India has culminated in the opening of a branch office, Sorg Architects India, in New Delhi in late 2010.

Committed to thoughtful modern architecture that relates to its extended context in a meaningful way, Suman Sorg has been honored with 23 awards by the National and local chapters of the AIA and was elevated to the College of Fellows in 2002. She is an active participant in the Washington, DC design community, serving on several boards and juries.

Mark Eardly:

Mark Erdly, AIA, is a principal of Cannon Design, a 1,000 person global architecture, planning, and engineering firm with 17 offices across the US, Canada, China, and India. Based out of Washington, DC, Mr. Erdly is a member of the firm’s international steering committee. Mr. Erdly has led Cannon Design’s growing India practice for over 5 years, and has traveled frequently to the country and lived in Mumbai. Cannon Design’s offices in Mumbai and New Delhi work seamlessly with its US offices on a wide range of prestigious institutional and corporate projects across India.  

Mr. Erdly’s business focus has been on practice building, client development, project leadership, and operations. He has a strong portfolio of large scale corporate and government campuses, mixed use townships, and urban planning. He brings a unique perspective as an American architect on the challenges and opportunities of working in the subcontinent, having successfully built a growing Indian design practice from the ground up.

Eugene Alford:

In more than two decades at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Eugene Alford has advocated on behalf of U.S. businesses in every region of the world, negotiating trade agreements, opening markets and promoting U.S. services exports.  Mr. Alford has represented the U.S. Government at the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the International Civil Aviation Organization, as well as in bilateral and multilateral meetings and negotiations with dozens of countries.  A Senior international Trade Specialist on the Export Facilitation Services Team, he works with industry leaders from diverse sectors including architecture, engineering, construction and planning services, and air transport and express delivery services.  Mr. Alford is also the Team Leader for AIA’s Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP) award, which focuses resources from the Department of Commerce and AIA to gain U.S. architecture and design firms new business opportunities in the India and Sri Lanka markets.

Mr. Alford holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Dawn Bruno:

Dawn Bruno is a Senior International Trade Specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce office in New York City. Ms. Bruno has worked for the Commerce Department since 2001 and has spent her career helping companies sell their products and services overseas. She has worked in and traveled to over forty countries and counting, including in U.S. Embassies in Croatia, Chile, Argentina and Ghana. For more information visit www.export.gov.

Toni Corsini

Toni is the Senior Trade Finance Specialist & New York/New Jersey Regional Manager representing the SBA Office of International Trade at the US Export Assistance Center in downtown New York City. Before becoming a Federal Government employee, Toni was the Vice President and Manager of Trade Services Marketing & Communication for North America at a large global financial institution.

Toni is well known in the business & banking communities, having spent many years in trade finance as a VP for commercial banks in both New York and New Jersey and as an export manager in the manufacturing sector. She holds a BS in Business Management (cum laude) and an AA in Banking.

Bruce Drossman:

Mr. Drossman is an Export Finance Manager with the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the official Export Credit Agency of the U.S. Government. He works from Ex-Im Bank’s Northeast & Mid-Atlantic Regional Office, within the New York City U.S. Export Assistance Center, providing Ex-Im Bank risk mitigation and financing program assistance to small business exporters located between his home in northern New Jersey and Maine. Mr. Drossman joined Ex-Im Bank in 2009 following a 26-year banking career in New York and Paris. His experience took him from the Irving Trust Company to Société Générale. There, he originated, structured, negotiated, and executed term financings of equipment exports from the US to emerging markets buyers, often with the support of Ex-Im Bank guarantees. Mr. Drossman completed his undergraduate education at Rutgers University, and earned graduate degrees from SUNY-Albany and Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs.

Alison Germak Gatchev:

Ms. Gatchev is the Director of Corporate Development in the Small & Medium Enterprise Finance department at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the primary agency of the U.S. Government tasked with facilitating U.S. private investment into emerging markets. In this role, Ms. Gatchev is responsible for counseling U.S. companies seeking financing, evaluating new project proposals and loan applications, and developing new business opportunities.  Ms. Gatchev is also responsible for leading her department’s outreach efforts to the U.S. business community and cultivating relationships with key federal and local partners.  Ms. Gatchev joined OPIC in 2004, first serving in OPIC's Office of External Affairs.  Ms. Gatchev holds a M.A. in International Commerce and Policy with an emphasis in Global Business from George Mason University, School of Public Policy. She is the recipient of the school's 2010 David Ricardo Trade Award, given to the graduate representing exceptional academic ability, involvement, and promise in the fields of commerce and trade.  Ms. Gatchev graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Susquehanna University and has studied abroad at Oxford University.

Registration—Click Here!

For questions, please contact Jessica Salmoiraghi, Director, Federal Relations and Counsel

Image: The Bahá’í House of Worship, Lotus Temple, New Delhi, India; architect: Fariborz Sahba