Carlos Salinas serves as the Executive Director, East Asia at the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC). In this role, Salinas leads the strategic vision, execution, and oversight of USSEC’s market and trade development efforts across a diverse portfolio of markets, including Greater China, Japan, and Korea, as well as key Southeast Asian markets such as Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia, among other strategically important markets in the region.
His responsibilities include building and strengthening strategic partnerships, guiding local teams, engaging with key industry stakeholders, and aligning regional activities with USSEC’s global mission to differentiate, elevate, and secure market access for U.S. Soy. Salinas works across both the animal feed and human consumption sectors to promote sustainability, transparency, and reliability within the U.S. Soy value chain.
Previously, Salinas served as Regional Director for the Americas, where he developed and executed integrated trade strategies throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. He successfully advanced market access initiatives, nurtured key industry relationships, and supported regional growth through high-impact programs focused on aquaculture, livestock feed, and food-grade soy. As part of that role, he was based in Panama City, Panama, where he oversaw operations across the hemisphere.
Before joining USSEC, Salinas led Bunge’s U.S. feed grains desk, where he managed strategic alignment across North America, oversaw commercial execution, and handled risk management for both physical and futures trading. Over the course of his career, he has held key commercial and leadership positions at Bunge and ADM, working with a broad range of commodities—including oilseeds, feed grains, and vegetable oils—in the U.S., Germany, Brazil, Singapore, Mexico, Bolivia, and other global hubs.
He currently resides in Shanghai, China, where he continues to lead USSEC’s initiatives across East and Southeast Asia.

Researcher, doctor, doctoral supervisor, Beijing Institute of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, major in agricultural product processing and storage engineering - theory and technology direction of animal product processing and safety control. As a post expert of the national beef and yak industry technology system, undertake the post work of beef cattle classification and segmentation; Presided over and participated in the research and formulation of many national and industrial standards, such as "beef carcass and fresh meat segmentation" (gb/t 27643-2011), "beef grading specification" (ny/t 676-2010), "beef grading" (sb/t 10637-2011), "pre-mortem living evaluation rules for beef cattle" (submitted); As a mainland assisting expert in the "Qinghai Tibet Plateau community animal husbandry industry science and technology project", he participated in the research on the public welfare (agricultural) industry science and technology project "Qinghai Tibet Plateau Characteristic organic animal product production technology and industrial model", focusing on "yak slaughtering, preservation and meat product production technology innovation and quality standard formulation".

Mr. Yuan Haiying founded Yuan Associates in February 2004, and since then he and the firm have become major players in China’s growing government affairs industry.

Mr. Yuan has thirty years experience in the Chinese Government, including senior diplomatic postings in Washington D.C., as China’s Agriculture Attaché, and in Rome, as the Alternate Representative to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO). He has been involved in negotiations on numerous bilateral and multilateral agreements in the areas of trade, investment, agriculture, forestry, fishery and environmental protection. For his efforts, Mr. Yuan received an Outstanding Contribution Certificate from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Outstanding Contribution Awards from the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In China, Mr. Yuan was the Director of the Ministry of Forestry’s Department of International Cooperation, where he coordinated the Ministry’s relations and joint projects with foreign governments and international organizations.

After retiring from public service, Mr. Yuan worked as Senior Vice President at Edelman Public Relations for three years and as Vice President at APCO Worldwide for three years. Mr. Yuan chaired the Government Affairs Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce and the China Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC) of the Chinese Government Cooperation Committee. Additionally, he was a Council Member of the China International Public Relations Association (CIPRA) and the Beijing Foreign Investment Association.

Mr. Yuan graduated from Peking University with a degree in English and International Politics. He speaks Mandarin and fluent English.