Kellie Meiman Hock

Senior Counselor

McLarty Associates

A long-time Latin America and trade policy hand, Kellie for over three decades has managed the most challenging issues confronting companies as they seek to manage global operations, tackle market access barriers, and grow internationally. She worked for nearly a decade as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State, serving in Bogota, Colombia, and throughout Brazil in Porto Alegre, São Paulo, and Recife. Her final posting was at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as Director for Brazil and the Southern Cone, where she worked on the U.S./Chile Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Kellie joined consulting firm McLarty Associates in 2000. Originally founding the firm’s trade and Brazil/Southern Cone practices, she eventually became Managing Partner, growing the firm to global scale. She contributed to trade negotiations throughout the region as a private sector stakeholder, including the NAFTA renegotiation. Beyond Latin America, Kellie has helped stakeholders to manage geopolitical uncertainty, increased deployment of industrial policy, and a dynamic global trade agenda.

Kellie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and chairs the Women’s Foreign Policy Group Leadership Council. An Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and Lecturer at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, she is a frequent contributor to CNN Brasil on trade policy matters. She is on the board of the Inter-American Dialogue and the Washington Campus, where she teaches the trade module. Kellie is also on the Advisory Council of the Midwest International Trade Association (MITA) and the Yeutter Institute of International Trade & Finance at the University of Nebraska.

Ricardo Zuniga 

Founding Partner

Dinámica Americas

Ricardo Zuniga is a founding partner of Dinámica Americas, a strategic advisory firm. He was a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, serving for 30 years in multiple roles, including as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle, and U.S. Consul General in São Paulo, Brazil.

Zuniga was the Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council from 2012 to 2015, advising President Obama on developments in the Americas and coordinating U.S. policy in the region. Prior to that, he served overseas tours in Mexico, Portugal, Cuba, Spain and Brazil and worked in Washington, D.C. in the Africa Bureau and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas Board. Zuniga received a B.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. He is married and has two daughters. 

Andy Schilling

Honorary Consul for 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.