Access Europe: Central and Eastern Europe
09/11/2023
9:45 AM to 3:30 PM
(GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US and Canada)
555 Long Wharf Drive New Haven, CT
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About

Registration Closed. Please contact Anthony.Sargis@trade.gov or 860-638-6954 with questions. 

Join the U.S. Commercial Service, Marcum LLP, and Murtha Cullina LLP for a half day program on U.S. export opportunities in Europe, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe.  This fast-growing region offers fertile ground for U.S. companies looking to increase their exports. 
During this in-person program, companies will:
  • Gain market insights from U.S. commercial diplomats and industry experts based at U.S. Embassies in Europe and Eurasia.
  • Learn about leading sectors for US exports in Central and Eastern Europe;
  • Learn about European policies and regulations relevant to your market growth;
  • Meet one-on-one with U.S. Commercial Service staff from Central and Eastern Europe to discuss your company’s export potential in the region. 
Further background on the region can be found in the Poland Country Commercial Guide, Hungary Country Commercial Guide, Romania Country Commercial Guide, as well as all regional country reports here. 

Date:                                  Monday, September 11, 2023
Time:                                  9:45am-3:30pm
Location:                            Marcum LLP, 555 Long Wharf Drive, New Haven, CT 06511
Cost:                                   $25

Questions? Contact: Melissa.Grosso@trade.gov
Learn About Our Events
We invite you to explore the wide variety of events that we offer to help U.S. companies expand their global sales.


Agenda
11
Registration and Networking
Registration and Networking
Start
9:45 AM
End
10:15 AM
Welcome Remarks
Welcome Remarks
Start
10:15 AM
End
10:30 AM
Speakers
Jeff Rossi
Dana R. Bucin
Melissa Grosso
Setting the Stage: An Overview of Trends in Europe/Eurasia
Setting the Stage: An Overview of Trends in Europe/Eurasia
Start
10:30 AM
End
11:00 AM
Speakers
Mike Lally
Export Opportunities: Central and Eastern Europe
Export Opportunities: Central and Eastern Europe
Start
11:00 AM
End
11:45 AM
Speakers
Neil Pickett
Katarzyna Slowinska
The Ukraine Dynamic
The Ukraine Dynamic
Start
11:45 AM
End
11:55 AM
Trade Winds Overview
Trade Winds Overview
Start
11:55 AM
End
12:00 PM
Q&A
Q&A
Start
12:00 PM
End
12:15 PM
Speakers
Mike Lally
Neil Pickett
Katarzyna Slowinska
Networking Lunch
Networking Lunch
Start
12:15 PM
End
1:30 PM
Prescheduled One-on-One Meetings
Prescheduled One-on-One Meetings
Start
1:30 PM
End
3:30 PM
Speakers
Mike Lally
Neil Pickett
Katarzyna Slowinska
Dana R. Bucin
Program Concludes
Program Concludes
Start
3:30 PM
End
3:30 PM
Speakers

Mike Lally

Director for International Economics, National Security Council Most Recently, Regional Senior Commercial Officer for Europe, U.S. Embassy Brussels

Michael Lally, Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs in Europe, is based at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. He leads a team of two hundred business development professionals located in twenty-four countries focused on direct sales, policy and market development and project advocacy in the member states of the European Union. Previously, Michael was Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs in Eurasia from 2017-2019. He led business development teams in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine to support American private sector efforts in Eurasian markets. In Moscow, Russia, he worked closely with resident American firms on risk assessment, sanctions compliance, partner due diligence and business development in non-sanctioned sectors. From 2014-2017, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in Washington D.C. His area of responsibility included forty-two offices with over four hundred staff located in the EMEA region. Michael, a Senior Foreign Service Officer, was previously Commercial Counselor at the U.S. Embassy’s Commercial Service in Ankara, Turkey and Mexico City, Mexico, and Director of the U.S. Export Assistance Center in Philadelphia. He also served as Senior Commercial Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan and Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he worked on energy and transportation transactions. Michael began his Foreign Service career in the U.S. Embassy, Kiev, Ukraine. In addition to his Foreign Service experience, Michael was Vice President for Business Development with AES, an independent power producer (Moscow, Russia) and an Energy Analyst with the Science Applications International Corporation (McLean, Virginia). Michael holds a Master’s Degree from Indiana University and Bachelor Degrees with Honors from The American University in Washington D.C. He is a graduate of the Wharton Management Program of the University of Pennsylvania. His writings have been published in the Christian Science Monitor, the Foreign Service Journal, Turkish Policy Quarterly, and Inside a U.S. Embassy.

Neil Pickett

Senior Commercial Officer, U.S. Embassy Hungary (Also covers Austria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Kosovo)

Neil Pickett joined the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Foreign Commercial Service in 2013 and was posted to the U.S. Export Assistance Center in Chicago. In 2015, Neil transferred to the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey where he served as the Deputy Principle Commercial Officer. During his tenure in Turkey, Neil earned the State Department’s prestigious Meritorious Honor Award “For sustained outstanding performance in advancing U.S. commercial interests in Turkey during a prolonged period of Adversity.” Neil moved to Warsaw, Poland in July 2019 to serve as the Deputy Senior Commercial Officer at the U.S. Embassy. While in Poland, Neil earned the State Department’s prestigious Meritorious Honor Award “For outstanding leadership during an exceptionally challenging time period”. In September 2022, Neil accepted the role of Senior Commercial Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, Hungary. Prior to joining the U.S. Government, Neil served as the International Sales Manager for a Chicago area manufacturing company for more than 12 years. In that capacity, he developed a sales and distribution network in more than 50 countries and built an offshore joint venture in Shenzhen, China.

Katarzyna Slowinska

Commercial Specialist, U.S. Embassy Poland (Also covers Lithuania, Germany, and the Czech Republic)

Katarzyna Slowinska serves as a commercial specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland. Kasia joined the U.S. Commercial Service in 2021. She covers Environmental Technologies (except air pollution & renewables), HVAC, Infrastructure, Agricultural Machinery, Construction & Building, Chemicals and Logistics sectors in Poland. Prior to joining the Department of Commerce, Kasia accumulated 10 years of experience working for the Polish public administration in the Ministry of the Environment, University of Warsaw and in private sector. Kasia speaks fluent Polish, Italian, Arabic, English and some Russian.

Jeff Rossi

New England Consumer & Industrial Products Leader, Marcum LLP

Jeff Rossi is an Assurance partner in the Firm’s Hartford, Connecticut office and serves as the New England Consumer & Industrial Products leader. He has nearly 30 years of experience providing audit and assurance services to tier one aerospace / defense, automotive, food manufacturing, sanitation / recycling, construction, and logistics companies.

Jeff has worked with privately owned and private equity-owned companies and is focused on EBITDA enhancement and value creation. He has worked with several clients as lead advisor on mergers and acquisitions as well as divestitures.

Before joining Marcum in 2022, Jeff served as an office managing partner, executive board member and the manufacturing industry co-leader for a large national accounting and advisory firm in Connecticut, providing assurances services to a variety of clients.

In addition to being a Certified Public Accountant, Jeff also holds the credentials of Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). Jeff has extensive experience in forensic accounting, internal controls and fraud prevention. Jeff also passed the Certified Fraud Deterrence Analyst exam in 2005 and earned the Certified Valuation Analyst credential in 2006.

He was recognized in the Hartford Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 in 2007 and received the Fairfield/Westchester Business Journal’s Most Trusted Advisor award in 2017.

Dana R. Bucin

Partner, Murtha Cullina LLP and Honorary Consul of Romania to Connecticut

Dana R. Bucin is a partner and chair of Murtha Cullina's Immigration practice.

She represents businesses and individual clients on a wide range of immigration matters, including green card applications, work visas, student visas, foreign investor visas, asylum, naturalization, religious work visas, as well as various other employment and family-based immigration matters.

As an immigration attorney with a business/corporate legal background, Dana's experience includes counseling foreign investors and entrepreneurs on setting up businesses in the U.S. or investing in existing U.S. ventures and obtaining a visa or green card based on such investment or entrepreneurship pursuant to the E-2, L-1 “new office”, H-1B “entrepreneur” and EB-5 visa options. 

Dana regularly provides multilingual legal representation in English, Spanish, French and Romanian. She also has a basic knowledge of Italian, German, Hungarian and Latin. She is often quoted as an expert by publications such as Bloomberg/BusinessWeek and the Hartford Business Journal on immigration law topics.

Dana serves as Murtha Cullina's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Committee chair, where she is responsible for the oversight of the firm's diversity and inclusion strategy and initiatives, ensuring that the firm’s core principles of inclusiveness and diversity are reflected across its internal and external policies, work and practices.

In addition, Dana handles a variety of cases to assist immigrants and refugees with humanitarian legal needs. Examples of humanitarian cases she assisted with include:

  • Representing Muslim refugee and her three children at JFK airport during the promulgation of the Muslim Ban in January 2017
  • Representing Cuban nationals with habeas corpus release from ICE custody in 2018 and 2019
  • Representing 70 Afghan nationals with applying for Humanitarian Parole after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
  • Representing several immigrants from various countries with applying for asylum based on political, religious and ethnic persecution
  • Traveling to the Tijuana – San Diego border checkpoint to assist 2,000+ Ukrainian refugees enter the US on humanitarian parole
  • Setting up the “Connecticut for Ukraine” Matching Program which matches Ukrainian refugees to CT sponsors
  • Honorary Consul of Romania to CT, running diplomatic programs that assisted the reunification of families separated at the border (Roma populations) and coordinates assistance for vulnerable Romanian citizens in CT, as well as assists the transfer of Ukrainian refugees from Romania to CT
  • Advocating for pro-immigrant bills at the state and federal level and offering testimony in support of state bills protecting the rights of CT immigrants

Melissa Grosso

Director, U.S. Commercial Service Connecticut

Melissa Grosso is the Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Commercial Service office in Middletown, Connecticut.  In this capacity, Melissa leads the office’s efforts to assist Connecticut firms develop effective export strategies for entry into new markets.  During her time at Commerce, Melissa has led numerous trade missions of US companies to international markets and has been the operational point person for large international trade summits in Connecticut.  She has worked with clients from a variety of industry sectors, with a particular area of expertise in the aerospace/defense, healthcare technologies, and energy sectors.  From 2012-2015, Melissa served as the Global Aerospace and Defense Team Leader for the US Commercial Service.  In this role, Melissa coordinated efforts amongst the 200+ aerospace and defense specialists worldwide to support the US aerospace industry. 

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