Tan Sri Datuk Dr. Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria is a Senior Advisor to The Asia Group, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Prior to joining The Asia Group, Dr. Sta Maria was the first woman to serve as Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat from 2019 to 2024 based in Singapore after a long career as a top-level Malaysian civil servant and trade negotiator.

Dr. Sta Maria served as Secretary-General of the Malaysian Ministry of International Trade and Industry from December 2010 to July 2016, overseeing the formulation of Malaysia’s international trade policies and positions. She regularly took the lead in their implementation as chief negotiator for bilateral and regional free trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Dr. Sta Maria played an integral role in Malaysia’s participation in multilateral forums such as APEC, where she often represented her economy during the APEC Ministers’ Responsible for Trade Meetings and the Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meetings. She also chaired the ASEAN body that drafted the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 Blueprint as well as the ASEAN Economic Community 2025 Blueprint.

An accomplished academic and writer, Dr Sta Maria received the American Academy of Human Resource Development’s Malcolm Knowles Award for the best dissertation of the year in the field of human resource development and awards from the University of Georgia. In 2017, she authored a book about her personal slice of Malaysian heritage and cuisine: The Smell of Home.

Dr. Sta Maria received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Malaya, her master’s degree from the University of Putra Malaysia, and her doctorate from The University of Georgia.

Barbara Weisel is a nonresident scholar in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She recently retired as a managing director at Rock Creek Global Advisors, an international economic policy advisory firm, where she focused on international trade and investment policy and negotiations as well as market access, regulatory matters, and digital trade issues.

Ms. Weisel has more than 25 years of experience in government advancing international trade and investment initiatives, expanding market access in Asia-Pacific markets, and resolving specific issues faced by businesses in the Asia-Pacific.

Ms. Weisel served as Assistant US Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. She was the US chief negotiator for the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from its inception in 2008 through its signing in 2016.

In addition to TPP, Ms. Weisel led bilateral FTA negotiations with Malaysia and Thailand. She also led efforts to expand U.S. market access and promote U.S. economic interests in the Asia Pacific.
As Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Bilateral Asian Affairs (Korea, Southeast Asia, and South Asia), Ms. Weisel helped negotiate the FTAs with Australia and Singapore. Earlier, she served as the official responsible for managing global pharmaceutical regulatory issues and as director for Japan affairs.

Before joining USTR, she worked at the State Department from 1984-1994, serving in a variety of positions, including as international economist on Japan, the Persian Gulf countries, and North Africa.

Ms. Weisel earned two Masters’ Degrees from Harvard University in 1983 and a Bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College (Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude).

Steven Okun, Founder and CEO of APAC Advisors and Senior Advisor to McLarty Associates, is a leader on corporate public affairs, ESG, sustainability, and stakeholder engagement. A 21-year resident of Singapore, he spent the first twelve years of his career in Washington, DC, including in the Administration of President Bill Clinton as Deputy General Counsel at the US Department of Transportation. As KKR’s first Director of Asia Public Affairs from 2011-2017, he was one of the first people in the region working on ESG in private capital. From 2003-2010, he created and led Public Affair for UPS Asia. An in-demand speaker in the corporate and the financial services sector, Steve also appears frequently across global media, provides the weekly International News Review for MONEY FM (Singapore) and contributes commentary to Nikkei Asia, The Straits Times, The Business Times, Eco-Business and Asia Times.