Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Speaker Biographies

James Burkhard is the director of oil market analysis at Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). He is the author of CERA's World Oil Watch, which analyzes short-to-medium-term developments in the world oil market. His expertise covers analysis of geopolitics, world economic conditions, and global oil demand and supply trends and how they influence oil prices. Mr. Burkhard coauthored 2020 Vision: Global Scenarios for the Future of the World Oil Industry--a CERA multi-client study that provided in-depth analysis of the energy future and projected long-term global oil demand, supply, and prices. He is also the project director of the new CERA multi-client study, Potential versus Reality: West African Oil and Gas to 2020. Before joining CERA, Mr. Burkhard directed rural infrastructure projects in West Africa and contributed to research on the interaction between government policy and capital investment.

Anthony Carroll, counsel at Manchester Trade, has twenty years of experience as a corporate lawyer and business adviser on international trade and investment, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. He possesses an extensive background in intellectual property law, first as an in-house lawyer with a venture capital firm specializing in high-tech investment and more recently as an adviser to both the international pharmaceutical industry and sovereign and regional governments on TRIPs and WTO accession.

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow at AEI and author of AEI's National Security Outlook. Before coming to AEI, he served as the director of strategic communications and initiatives at Lockheed Martin and as deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century. From 1995 to 1999, he was the policy group director, as well as a professional staff member, for the Committee on National Security (now the Committee on Armed Services) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Donnelly has also been the executive director of The National Interest, editor of the Army Times, and deputy editor of Defense News. He is the author of several books, including Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama; Clash of Chariots: A History of Armed Warfare; The Khobar Towers Bombing Incident; Military Readiness 1997: Rhetoric and Reality; and Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.

Douglas Farah is a senior fellow at the National Strategy Information Center, where he researches and writes on armed groups and intelligence. He is also a consultant on terrorist finances. Before joining NSIC in January, he spent nineteen years as a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post and other publications, reporting on conflict zones across West Africa and Latin America. In November 2001, he broke the story of Al Qaeda's ties to the West African blood diamond trade. Due to threats against his life, he and his family were evacuated from the Ivory Coast in December 2001. He spent the following two years as a member of the Washington Post investigative unit, writing extensively about terrorist finance. He is the author of Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror, which will be published in May 2004 by Random House.

General Carlton W. Fulford Jr. USMC (Ret.) is director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. As part of the Pentagon's National Defense University, the Africa Center fosters professional development of Africa's civilian and military leaders, supports democratic governance in Africa, and facilitates long-term, continuing dialogue with and among leaders from Africa, Europe, and the United States. General Fulford began his tenure at the Africa Center after retiring in February 2003 from the Marines Corps after serving as deputy commander of U.S. European Command, a position that included extensive work on U.S.-Africa relations and travel throughout the region. His previous assignments included commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific; commander, U.S. Marine Corps Bases, Pacific, headquartered at Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii (1998-1999); commanding general, I Marine Expeditionary Force (1996-1998); commanding general, III Marine Expeditionary Force (1994-1995); commanding general, 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (1991-1992); and commanding officer, Task Force Ripper during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm(1990-1991). He has served as director of the Joint Staff (1999-2000); vice director of the Joint Staff (1995-1996); and commander for the General Marine Corps Bases, Japan (1994-1995). His personal decorations include the Purple Heart Medal with gold star in lieu of a second award; Defense Distinguished Service Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters in lieu of a second and third awards; Silver Star Medal; Legion of Merit with Combat "V" and gold star in lieu of a second award; Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V."

David Hale, the founding chairman of Hale Advisers and ChinaOnline, is a Chicago-based economist who works with investment management companies and multinational companies in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South Africa. He formerly worked as chief economist for Kemper Financial Services from 1977 to 1995 and Zurich Financial Services, which he joined as chief economist when it purchased Kemper in 1995. As chief economist for Zurich, he advised the group's fund management and insurance operations on the economic outlook and a wide range of public policy issues. He continues to consult with the group's affiliates in North America, Britain, and Australia. He is a member of the National Association of Business Economists and the New York Society of Security Analysts. He writes on a broad range of economic subjects and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Financial Analyst Journal, the Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, and other publications. He has frequently testified before Congressional committees on domestic and international economic policy issues and has briefed senior officials in the executive branch, including President George W. Bush. Since 1990, he also has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on how changes in the global economy are affecting U.S. security relationships. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, as well as a variety of government and private sector economic policy research groups in Washington, Tokyo, and Berlin.

George L. Kirkland is a vice president of ChevronTexaco Corporation and president of ChevronTexaco Overseas Petroleum, responsible for managing ChevronTexaco's exploration and production activities outside North America. He assumed his present position effective in January 2002. Previously, he was president of North America Upstream for ChevronTexaco, a position he assumed in October 2001 upon the formation of ChevronTexaco Corporation. He joined Chevron in 1974 as a construction engineer in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1992, he was named general manager of production for Chevron Nigeria Ltd. and was named general manager of asset management in January 1996. In November 1996, Mr. Kirkland was appointed chairman and managing director of Chevron Nigeria Ltd. and was responsible for all its operations, including such diverse projects as the West African Gas Pipeline Project, a major gas-to-liquids project with SASOL of South Africa; the Escravos Gas Project expansions; and deepwater exploration offshore Nigeria. While in Nigeria, Mr. Kirkland took a very active role in industry, economic and environmental organizations. In January 2000, he was named president of Chevron U.S.A. Production Company and vice president of Chevron Corporation, responsible for its exploration and production operations in the United States and Canada. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Africa America Institute, a board member of Corporate Council on Africa, and a director of the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Association.

Florizelle (Florie) Liser is the assistant U.S. trade representative for Africa in the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, she leads U.S. trade efforts in sub-Saharan Africa, oversees implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and serves as chief U.S. negotiator for a free trade agreement with the five member countries of the Southern African Customs Union. Ms. Liser has an extensive background in trade negotiations and Africa. She previously served as assistant U.S. trade representative for industry, market access, and telecommunications, responsible for developing and coordinating U.S. trade policy as it affects industrial and manufacturing interests. As part of the ongoing WTO market access negotiations of the Doha Development Agenda, Ms. Liser met with the African diplomatic community and African ambassadors to the WTO and held various bilateral consultations with African nations to discuss market access proposals. Previously, Ms. Liser worked at the Department of Transportation and served as senior trade policy adviser to the secretary in the Office of International Transportation and Trade. In this capacity, Ms. Liser coordinated trade and transportation issues of importance to developing countries, with a particular focus on Africa. She organized the first U.S.-Africa Transportation Ministerial and helped in developing the Safe Skies for Africa initiative. From 1980 to 1987, Ms. Liser worked in the USTR GATT Affairs office on WTO developing country trade issues, including the Committees on Trade and Development, Least Developed Countries, and Balance-of-Payments, and coordinated U.S. participation in a number of balance-of-payments consultations--including the first-ever Nigeria balance-of-payments consultations. As an associate fellow at the Overseas Development Council (ODC) from 1975-1980, Ms. Liser served as the ODC source person on Africa and organized seminars on relevant African issues related to ODC's mission of increasing official development assistance to and improving U.S. trade relations with developing countries. Ms. Liser was a founding member of TransAfrica, cochair of the Education Committee of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of TransAfrica and has over many years been actively involved in promoting trade and development policies that recognize Africa's growing importance to the U.S. and its African-American citizens.

Phillip van Niekerk is a founder and North American head of G3, the Good Governance Group, a risk assessment company that focuses on the investment environment in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia. Formerly, he was a Washington representative of Kroll Associates and a project manager at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington, D.C., a project of the Center for Public Integrity. From 1997 to December 2000, he was editor in chief of the Mail & Guardian, South Africa's leading investigative newspaper. Before that, he spent ten years as a foreign correspondent in Africa, covering the continent for a variety of international publications, including the London Observer, the Boston Globe, and Volkskrant of Amsterdam.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a staff writer for Insight Magazine, as well as an editorial assistant for the Los Angeles Times and Reuters in Jerusalem. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. Articles by Ms. Pletka have appeared, inter alia, in the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Jerusalem Post, the Daily Star, Financial Times Deutschland, and Frontpagemagcom. Her media appearances include CNN, Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, British Broadcasting, MSNBC, Canadian Broadcasting, NPR, Voice of America, and PBS. She speaks frequently before national audiences and has testified before the U.S. Congress.

David Shinn spent thirty-seven years as a foreign-service officer in Kenya, Tanzania, Lebanon, Mauritania, Cameroon, and Sudan. He also served as ambassador to Burkina Faso (1987-1990) and Ethiopia (1996-1999). He was the State Department coordinator for Somalia during the United Nations intervention and director of East African affairs from 1993 to 1996. He is now an adjunct professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, working with a half dozen nongovernmental organizations in the Horn of Africa, as well as writing and speaking publicly about East Africa and the Horn.

Alex Vines is head of the Africa program at Chatham House at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He is also a part-time senior researcher for business and human rights at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. From May 2001 to May 2003, he served as a member of the U.N. panel of experts on Liberia and has worked for the United Nations in Angola and Mozambique. In the early 1990s, he worked as an Africa risk analyst for the London-based Control Risks, and he has been a MacArthur Fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College at University of London and a research associate of Queen Elizabeth House at University of Oxford. He is on the editorial boards of the South African Journal of International Affairs and the Journal of Southern African Studies. He has published widely on Africa, including on resource extraction.

Michael Westphal is deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, the senior political appointment in the Pentagon with responsibility for sub-Saharan Africa strategy and policy. Before this, he worked as a congressional staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with lead for sub-Saharan Africa, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and international peacekeeping. As a former U.S. Marine, he served in numerous command and staff positions, including tours at 3rd Landing Support Battalion in Okinawa, Japan; Weapons Training Battalion, and Headquarters and Service Battalion at Quantico, Virginia.

Return to event