Tampa Bay Global Business Initiative in cooperation with World Trade Center | World Affairs Council  programs are held monthly and are open to individuals interested in international affairs and business. Meeting dates will be the second Friday of each month in order to allow speakers to remain in the area for the weekend. The program speakers will be announced at least one month in advance. Each program will be designed to give specific Off-The-Record information on a specific issue and to offer interesting and helpful insight into various cultures worldwide.

                          change the dynamics of U.S. - Latin America Relations, no matter who wins.

• Friday, November 7, 2008 - Tampa Bay World Affairs Council

           PROGRAM: What Lies Ahead Under a New Administration?  Future  Economic & Political Trends in Latin America.

            The Role of the powerful OAS in the Americas.  www.oas.org

         SPEAKER: Ms. Jane Barber Thery, Head OAS-USA Relations, Organization of American States, Washington, D.C.

         INTRODUCTION: The Honorable Betty Castor, Director, Pitel Center for Global Solutions, USF

Jane Thery is the Head of OAS – USA Relations, Department of International Affairs, Secretariat for External Relations of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC. She manages relations with the US Congress, the US Administration, Washington, DC as the host city of the OAS headquarters, and key cities in the US. Before taking on these responsibilities in 2006, she was the Principal Specialist of the OAS Summits of the Americas Secretariat. The Secretariat is charged with monitoring the implementation of mandates from the Summits of the Americas and preparing for future Summits. She was responsible for the Summit mandate areas of: Trade, Investment and Financial Stability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Employment; Growth with Equity; and Infrastructure and Standards for the 2004 Summit in Monterrey, Mexico and the 2005 Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina. From 1995 to 2001, Ms. Thery was Principal Specialist in the Trade Unit of the OAS where she was actively involved in providing technical support to the negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Previous to joining the Trade Unit, Ms. Thery held senior positions with the Institute for International Economics, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, and the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. She began her career in Lima, Peru as the Ford Foundation's International Affairs Program Officer for the Andean Region and Southern Cone from 1982-1985. Ms. Thery has consulted for the Inter-American Development Bank, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and Odebrecht Company of Brazil, among other organizations, and has worked in over 50 countries, primarily in the developing world. She speaks frequently on US - Latin American economic and foreign policy issues, trade policy and development, with recent lectures at the US Foreign Service Institute, the National Defense University and Yale University. Ms. Thery holds an MA in international economics from Yale University, a BA in international relations from Duke University and is fluent in Spanish.

All meetings are open for members to have Question & Answer sessions with speakers. Subjects can vary from cultural to politics to business to leisure and travel.

Programs will start with a report of 'Travel Alerts and US State Department 'Hot Spots' in the world. We will ask members to share any recent travel experiences... good, bad or otherwise.