Kellie Meiman Hock

Senior Counselor

McLarty Associates, an Ankura Company

Kellie Meiman Hock, Senior Counselor, founded the firm’s trade and Brazil/Southern Cone practices and helped more than one hundred companies pursue global opportunities and resolve market-access challenges since joining McLarty in March 2000.

Prior to McLarty, she served nearly a decade as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State, with assignments in Bogotá, Colombia, across Brazil (Porto Alegre, São Paulo, and Recife), and at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative within the Executive Office of the President. For more than three decades, Kellie has focused on Latin America and trade, investment, and technology policy, advising companies on geopolitical risk, industrial policy, and regulatory challenges.

An adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Kellie has been deeply involved in stakeholder efforts addressing an evolving global trade agenda and economic nationalism, and has supported companies in internationalizing their public policy operations and global expansion strategies. She has lived and studied in Central America and Japan, writes and speaks frequently on trade and Brazil-related policy issues, and serves on several policy and advisory boards, including at the Yeutter Institute at the University of Nebraska. A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Kellie is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

John L. Holden

Managing Director

Head of the Greater China Practice

McLarty Associates, an Ankura Company

John L. Holden is Managing Director and head of the Greater China practice at McLarty Associates, an international strategic advisory firm. Holden’s China career spans more than five decades, twenty-eight years of which he spent in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei. He studied Chinese in Taiwan 1972-73 and again in 1976-77 and made his first visit to the People’s Republic of China in 1974. In 1981 Holden served as an interpreter for National Geographic writers of the Yellow River and Tibet chapters of the book “Journey Into China.”

During twelve years with the agribusiness firm Cargill, Holden played key roles in establishing the firm’s first ten businesses in China and served as chairman of its China holding company. Holden has been Managing Director and Senior Counselor for Hill+Knowlton Strategies (Beijing); founding Chairman of Shaklee (China) Ltd.; founding Associate Dean at Peking University’s Yenching Academy and Professor of Practice at its Guanghua School of Management. While at Peking University, Holden received China’s Friendship Award.

Mr. Holden was President of the National Committee on US-China Relations from 1998 to 2005, where he launched its US-China Young Leaders Forum, Foreign Policy Colloquium, and Public Intellectuals Program. 

Holden served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce (China). He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is Senior Associate (Non-resident) of the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Holden studied classical and Mandarin Chinese at the University of Minnesota (BA magna cum laude) and Stanford University (MA and all PhD coursework). He is married to the former Isabelle Puig; they have two daughters and two grandsons. His Chinese name is 何立強.

Andrew Schilling

Honorary Consul

Japan to Nebraska

Andrew Schilling was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, specializing in public diplomacy and strategic communications. In his 24 years with the foreign service, Andy served as a public affairs officer at U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Oslo, Vienna, Rome and Tokyo. His principal duties included Embassy press spokesman; overseeing media relations and senior delegation visits; and managing professional and educational exchange programs sponsored by the U.S. government. He is fluent in German, Italian and French, and speaks or reads six other languages, including Japanese.

Following his foreign service career, Andy resettled his family to Omaha and accepted a position as the command speechwriter at U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt AFB. Andy was employed for six years at First National Bank of Omaha, where he worked in the enterprise marketing department, with previous experience in the Bank’s mortgage, credit card and risk management areas. Most recently, Andy was the senior director for international business development at the Greater Omaha Chamber, where his responsibilities included export promotion, foreign direct investment, and other business development opportunities with international partners. Since Fall 2021, Andy has been an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), teaching international business and communications. He is a substitute announcer on KVNO-FM, the classical radio station of UNO. He is a board member of the Omaha Sister Cities Association and the Nebraska World Affairs Council (NEWAC).

Andy graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in Modern Languages, and served four years in the Navy as a surface warfare officer. After his naval service, he earned an MBA in marketing from The Wharton School, and worked four years on Madison Avenue as an advertising account executive at Young & Rubicam New York. Andy was the recipient of a Japan Foundation GEN-J grant [Grassroots Exchange Network], and participated in the program in October, 2019, with visits to Tokyo and Hiroshima. He participated in a Nebraska Trade Mission to Tokyo in February of 2020. In August 2020, he was appointed as Honorary Consul for Japan to Nebraska by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He and his wife Tracy have two grown sons: Tony, a graduate of Creighton; and Jamey, who graduated from Marquette and earned an MBA at Notre Dame.