2022 Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference

Over the last two decades of a four-decade career, Bennett Freeman has been an innovative leader in the responsible business and investment arenas.  He is an Associate Fellow in the Chatham House International Law Programme, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Conflict Network, a member of the Advisory Council of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, and a co-founder and Steering Committee member of Business 4 Ukraine.  

As Principal of Bennett Freeman Associates LLC, he advises multinational corporations, international institutions, NGOs, and foundations on policy and strategy related to international labor and human rights.  In 2018, he authored the report Shared Space Under Pressure: Business Support for Civic Freedoms and Human Rights Defenders.  He co-founded the Cotton Campaign, the Global Network Initiative, and the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark while serving from 2006-15 as Senior Vice President for Sustainability Research and Policy at Calvert Investments, where he directed the firm’s ESG analysis as well as its shareholder advocacy and public policy initiatives from 2006-15. 

Freeman served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 1999-2001, Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs from 1997-99 and as chief speechwriter for Secretary of State Warren Christopher from 1993-96.  Previously, he was Manager-Corporate Affairs for GE and began his career as a speechwriter and presidential campaign aide for former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Samantha Galltin is Managing Director of Commercial Operations for the Port of Long Beach, California, leading the Port’s Business Development, Tenant Services and Operations, and Security Services divisions, collaborating with the three division directors, customers and industry partners to drive efficiencies and optimize the supply chain to build on the Port’s value proposition of operational excellence and world-class customer service.

Ms. Galltin was appointed to the post in September 2021 by the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners, governing body for the Port, and reports to the Deputy Executive Director of Administration and Operations.

Before joining the Port team in November 2020 as Assistant Director of Business Development, she capped a 13-year career with BNSF Railroad as Director of Port Business Development, serving as liaison between the railroad and ports in the Pacific Northwest and Gulf regions.

Ms. Galltin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and earned a Master’s in Global Supply Chain Management from the University of Southern California in 2020. She is a recipient of the Villanova Communications Award and is included in Who’s Who in America’s Universities and Colleges.

 Originally from San Diego, Samantha Galltin and her family now make their home in Azusa, California.

Tara is the Managing Director of Spectra Private Brands a sourcing organization focused on bringing brands and products to life through crafted product creation and a sustainable, ethical sourcing model.

Spectra is based in New York City and is a division of the W.E. Connor brands which designs, sources, and imports all types of consumer goods from twenty countries for over sixty leading retailers and brands.

Akiko Inui is the former Senior Vice President-Value Chain Strategies at PVH Corp., where she led forward-looking projects related to supply chain, sustainability, traceability, and resiliency.  Prior to joining PVH, Akiko worked for Itochu Prominent USA and Dow Chemical where she developed her supply chain knowledge and expertise from fiber to finished product. 

Appointed by the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Akiko currently serves as an officer on the Cotton Board.

Akiko received her M.A. in International Relations and International Communications from Boston University.

Mark is responsible for global operations and stakeholder engagement for WRAP, an independent, objective, non-profit team of global social compliance experts dedicated to promoting safe, lawful, humane, and ethical manufacturing around the world through certification and education.  Mark served on the Board of Directors of WRAP for sixteen years, including four years as Secretary. Before joining WRAP in September 2020, Mark worked for twenty-seven years in the apparel industry. He was Senior Vice President – General Counsel and Secretary for Jockey International, Inc. At Jockey, Mark focused on compliance, risk, and international trade while handling all legal issues for the company. He also led the Human Resources department for eight years.  Mark has a BBA in economics with honors from the University of Iowa and a law degree from Southern Illinois University School of Law. He resides in the Chicago area.

Andrea Kennedy is VP of Sustainability at Material Exchange and a fashion and sustainability strategist and educator. At Material Exchange, Andrea works to drive measurable impact reduction and positive change in material sourcing for global fashion and footwear brands, material suppliers, and textile agents. Andrea has over 25 years' experience in design, merchandising, sourcing and sustainability at Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Bob Mackie, Ann Taylor, Groovy on Grand and Fashiondex, where she led the sustainability consulting and worked with high-profile global fashion brands and retailers on implementing sustainable practices across all areas of design, sourcing and production. Most recently, Andrea was chair of the Sustainability Task Force and co-chair of Fashion Merchandising at LIM College, where she co-developed the sustainability courses and the sustainability minor program. Andrea still teaches one Advanced Sustainability course per year at LIM College. As well, Andrea is a strategic council member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a Climate Reality Leader mentor and speaker, and board member at ESRAP- Educators for Socially-Responsible Apparel Practices. She holds a B.A. in Fashion Design from Parsons, a Masters in Education for Sustainability from Manhattanville College and was a 2020/2021 Zankel Fellow for Climate Change Education at Columbia University.

Mr. Klein is a management consultant with expertise in the areas of retail and consumer product industries, specifically in the areas of supply chain transformation, global sourcing, growth strategy, retail portfolio optimization, strategic planning, supply and demand planning, organization design and technology strategy. Ron is a partner in PwC’s Operations Transformation practice and leads PwC global sourcing COE.

Janet L Labuda is the Head of Compliance with Maersk Customs Services, a premier logistics and Customs House Broker. Janet retired in 2011 after completing a thirty-one year career with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Prior to her retirement, she was the Director, Textile/Apparel Policy and Programs Division at the Headquarters Office of International Trade in Washington, D.C. As the Director, she led the development and implementation of national policy decisions regarding the importation of textile products into the United States. She was responsible for ensuring the enforcement of laws affecting a $100 billion textile import industry comprising close to 70,000 importers and more than a million annual import transactions. Previously, she worked on various trade enforcement and compliance programs including supply chain security, anti-dumping countervailing duty, Intellectual Property Rights protection.

As the Director, she worked closely with the trade community often speaking at various venues. She ensured close partnerships with the Department of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the State Department on matters of textile trade compliance. She was the agency spokesperson on these issues to the Congress, the press and foreign governments. In addition, she spearheaded various training initiatives for CBP personnel, the domestic and international trade communities, and foreign government representatives. She has done extensive travel in Africa promoting compliance with the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

She began her career with Customs as an Inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport. In addition to passenger and cargo processing she was a member of the Contraband Enforcement Team. She spent time as a Senior Customs Representative in the Hague, Netherlands, the Director, of the Zero Tolerance Program, the Director, Revenue Enforcement Division, Office of Regulatory Audit and worked for the Commissioner on a multi-agency Interdiction Committee devising anti-narcotic cooperative programs with private pilots, commercial fisheries and commercial aviation associations.

She has traveled extensively and has skills in international negotiation. She represented Customs in negotiations of the Morocco, Singapore, Australia Free Trade Agreements and up to her retirement worked on Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations. She has also advised various governments as well as the U.S. importing community on the establishment of trade compliance standards. She has her Master’s degree from New York University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, New York and is a John F. Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive Fellow. She currently resides in Gainesville, Virginia and is doing private consulting on a number of trade and security related issues with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Grunfeld, Desiderio, Lebowitz Law Firm, and various corporate clients throughout the world.

Karla Magruder is the Founder and President of Accelerating Circularity.  She has 35 years of global experience from fiber to finished garments. In her current role at Accelerating Circularity, she leads the organization’s work in enabling the industry’s transition to textile-to-textile circular systems.  

Prior to her current role she founded Fabrikology International, a textile consulting company where she worked on material developments and guided both nonprofits and for-profit organizations towards more sustainable textile strategies.  Textile Exchange, USAID, Lenzing, and Carhartt were previous clients.

Karla is currently a Textile Exchange Governance Board member, Gr3n Advisory Board member and until recently a UNFCCC Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action Steering Committee Member and Co-Chair of the Raw Material Working Group.

Abby McGill has been a program officer at the Solidarity Center, the largest US-based international worker rights organization and an early member of the Cotton Campaign, since 2018. She manages the organization's programming in Central Asia. She has worked in the international labor movement, and specifically on the problem of forced and child labor in Uzbek cotton production, for more than a decade, first at the American Federation of Teachers and then at the International Labor Rights Forum.

She holds a bachelor's degree in Slavic languages and literature from the University of Kansas and earned a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University.  

Mark Messura serves as Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Marketing for Cotton Incorporated, where he is responsible for the company’s global marketing and technical support programs with retailers, brands and manufacturers.

Mr. Messura is a frequent speaker and advisor to the textile industry on issues related to sustainability, responsible sourcing, supply chain strategy, and fiber economics.

He is Chairman of the Industry Advisory Board, Textile Apparel and Technology Management Program in the College of Textiles at North Carolina State University where he is also an adjunct associate professor. Mark serves on the Industry Advisory Boards at Washington State University and Mississippi State University.

Prior to joining Cotton Incorporated in 1994, he served as Director of Policy and Programs for the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center, and as Associate Director of the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology. 

He earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in Economics and an M.A. in Policy Analysis from Duke University.

Cotton Incorporated, funded by U.S. growers of upland cotton and importers of cotton and cotton textile products, is the research and marketing company representing upland cotton. The program is designed and operated to improve the demand for and profitability of cotton.

James Pearce is the Emerging Technologies Manager at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and runs their "Faculty Research Space". The space is a cross-disciplinary studio where faculty and their students can research and experiment with emerging technologies - with an emphasis on practical application - using tech as a catalyst to help create things of value that are personalized, sustainable, ethical, and globally relevant.  James is also an adjunct professor at FIT, teaching interactive design + coding in their Creative Technology minor.

Until January 2020, Mr. Pellegrini, who is no longer a member of the bar, was Senior Counsel at McGuireWoods LLP where his clients included multinationals, general merchandise retailers, importers, exporters, domestic and foreign manufacturers, commission agents, trade associations, and international marketing companies. Mr. Pellegrini’s practice focused on the regulatory and commercial aspects of international trade. He provided assistance with respect to government regulation of the import-export trade, duty planning, admissibility requirements, litigation in the United States Court of International Trade, representation before the various federal agencies that regulate trade in the United States, and the commercial aspects of international trade.

David M. Spooner is a partner in the Corporate Department in Barnes & Thornburg’s Washington, D.C., office.  Mr. Spooner represents governments, trade associations, and corporate clients on international trade matters, including trade remedies, trade policy and customs issues.  He uses his past experience as a high-level political appointee in the Executive Branch and on Capitol Hill to assist clients with their advocacy efforts before both branches of government, as well as before foreign governments.

Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Spooner served as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration.  In that capacity, Mr. Spooner led U.S. Government enforcement of trade remedy laws, principally the antidumping and anti-subsidy laws.  He administered the Foreign Trade Zone system; oversaw apparel trade policy and the implementation of laws governing trade in apparel; managed trade remedy negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as dispute resolution proceedings at the WTO; chaired U.S.-China talks on macroeconomic reforms and the steel industry; and supervised the US Department of Commerce’s import safety initiatives.

Prior to his Senate confirmation as Assistant Secretary, Mr. Spooner served as the Chief Textile and Apparel Negotiator and Transition Coordinator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).  While at USTR, he was a principal negotiator for free trade agreements with Central America, the Dominican Republic, Singapore, Australia, Chile, Panama, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Colombia and Peru, principally negotiating customs enforcement, apparel and textile, origin and safeguard provisions.  He was heavily involved in building support for congressional passage of the Bush Administration’s trade agenda.  Mr. Spooner also negotiated a comprehensive apparel trade agreement with China and concluded bilateral customs and quota arrangements with several nations.

Before his appointment to USTR, Mr. Spooner worked on Capitol Hill, managing the Washington D.C. office and serving as the legislative director and press secretary for a member of Congress, serving as Communications Director for the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, and working for the U.S. House Committee on Rules, which manages debate and amendments in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Spooner earned his J.D. from the College of William & Mary School of Law and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.

He is admitted to practice in Washington, D.C., and Virginia and before the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.