Managing Traffic at the Gateway to Global Commerce “It is no longer a uni-polar world. There are various trading blocks that have more and more influence, whether they are in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or the former Soviet Republic,” says Andrew Gelfuso ’01 M.B.A., executive director of the International Gateway in Washington, D.C. — the trade arm of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center and the nation’s access point to the global market.

From his vantage point at the intersection of trade and hospitality, he advises collaboration among nations. “We need to see different economies as customers and partners rather than competitors … From the day companies open, they’re going to have to see the world as their market.”

Working for Trade Center Management Associates, Gelfuso is part of a six-member executive committee overseeing operations and a multilingual staff of almost 2,000 in the 3.1 million-square-foot hub of commerce, part of the U.S. General Services Administration’s largest public/private partnership. He manages trade promotion, government relations, and business development as the first point of contact for businesses, embassies and trade associations. “We spend a lot of time brokering relationships, and working with different partners to craft a vision for trade events here at the center,” he says.

Gelfuso’s career path veered toward the U.S. Foreign Service after he spent a semester in Vietnam during his senior year at Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y. “I just watched a developing economy bustling with activity firsthand and I thought ‘I want to be a part of this.’” Before taking on his current role, he worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce managing the commercial section of embassies in Southeast Asia, and promoting trade agreements with Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.

The growing demands of the middle class in developing nations may strain energy supplies and raise food costs, “but that also means people in India and China have more money in their pockets to purchase U.S. goods and services,” he notes with optimism. “With more purchasing power and the capital to locate companies in the U.S. and hire U.S. workers, to me, that is an often overlooked part of the global economy.”
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