Kati Suominen

Kati Suominen is Founder and CEO of TradeUp Capital Fund, a new equity crowdfunding platform for globalizing companies, an outperforming and high-growth segment. TradeUp enables accredited investors, funds and banks to connect and transact with proven exporters seeking $100,000-$20mm in debt or equity to propel their growth and international sales.

Kati is also the Founder and CEO of Nextrade Group, LLC, a platform and consulting firm for governments, multilateral development banks, and leading think-tanks aiming to expand trade and small business exports in the global digital economy. She is Founder and Partner of U.S. Export Capital Group, LLC, an aspiring investment fund for globalizing companies.

In 2004-2010, she served as International Trade Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, a Washington DC-based multilateral lender with $12 billion in annual development finance transactions. In 2006-09, she also served as Advisor to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) senior officials on ways to free regional trade.

Kati is a thought-leader in trade and has published 9 books and authored some 80 articles about trade, competitiveness, and the global economy. In 2010-12, she was awarded a fellowship at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a leading think-tank. She is currently also Adjunct Professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the third largest U.S. think-tank, where she leads an eBay-sponsored project on advancing small business online trade.

She is Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, American Assembly’s Next Generation Fellow year 2010, and member of Women in International Trade. Kati is also on the Advisory Board of GlobeTrade, a 30-year Chicago company that helps U.S. SMEs internationalize. She holds a PhD in political economy from the University of California, San Diego, and MBA from the Wharton School of Business.