Authors

Xuemeng Wang is a Research Scholar within the International Trade and Investment team at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Concurrently, she is in the final stage of completing her master’s degree in International Studies at Simon Fraser University. Her academic pursuits primarily revolve around the examination of socio-economic development, addressing the challenges in this domain, and advocating for the advancement of social equality and sustainable development practices.

Charlotte Atkins is a Project Specialist with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada's Business Asia team. She has a Masters in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Toronto, where her research focused on contentious politics in Asia. She has since expanded her research areas to include policy, trade, and investment between Canada and the Asia Pacific through her work at APF Canada.

Anastasia Ufimtseva is a Program Manager, Business Asia, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She holds a PhD in Global Governance from the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University with a specialization in international political economy. Her dissertation examined Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Canadian and Russian oil and natural gas sectors and she has published widely on trade and investment relations between Asia and Canada, specifically on FDI, governance, and energy policy. Prior to joining APF Canada, Anastasia worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business.

Shruti Jhunjhunwala is a Research Scholar with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s International Trade and Investment Team. She holds an MSc in International Business from HEC Montreal. Her research interests include private-public partnerships as well as inclusive and sustainable trade.

Alison Soe is a Research Scholar with APF Canada's International Trade & Investment team.

Deanna L. Horton is currently a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, and a Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. At the Munk School, Ms. Horton has undertaken research focused on Canadian company locations in Asia, based on data collected for an interactive map. 

In her diplomatic career, Ms. Horton served as Canada’s Ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, as Minister (Congressional, Public and Intergovernmental Relations) in Washington, and a total of twelve years in Japan culminating in her appointment as Deputy Head of Mission. She was a negotiator on the original North American Free Trade Agreement, and then spent four years in Washington following the NAFTA and WTO legislation through U.S. Congress. In the private sector, Ms. Horton was Vice-President (Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs) at Sherritt International, a diversified resource company.

Ms. Horton has a Diploma in International Studies from the Bologna Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; M.A. (International Affairs) from Carleton University Norman Paterson School of International Affairs; B.A. (Hons) McGill University. Ms. Horton also spent two years at the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute in Yokohama, Japan.

Bart Édes is a policy analyst, commentator, and author of Learning From Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption (2021). An APF Canada Distinguished Fellow, he focuses on developing Asian economies, international development, cross-border trade and investment, innovation, social policies, and transformative trends reshaping the world.

Kai Ostwald is the Director of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and the Department of Political Science. His work focuses broadly on politics and development in Southeast Asia, and has been published in leading disciplinary and area studies journals. Kai has also been involved in policy and development work for a range of organizations including the World Bank and the International Development Research Centre. He holds additional research appointments at ISEAS in Singapore and the Penang Institute in Malaysia, and was previously VP of the Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies.

Patrick Leblond is CN-Paul M. Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy and Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He is also Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Research Fellow at CIRANO, and Affiliated Professor of International Business at HEC Montréal.

Dr. Leblond is an expert on economic governance and policy. He has published extensively on banking regulation, financial and monetary integration, international investment, international trade, and business-government relations. Before embarking on his academic career, he worked in accounting and auditing for Ernst & Young as well as in corporate finance and strategy consulting for Arthur Andersen & Co. and SECOR Consulting in Montreal.

Karthik Nachiappan is a Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (Ottawa). His research focuses on India's geoeconomics, how issues like trade, technology, and climate change affect Indian foreign policy and how India's positions on these issues shape Indo-Pacific security dynamics. He is the author of Does India Negotiate? (Oxford University Press, 2020).