Henry Steingass Senior Advisor

hsteingass@wicks-group.com
202-457-7790 (office)
202-855-0504 (mobile)

Henry Steingass is a Senior Advisor to The Wicks Group, PLLC on international trade policy and economic development. Henry has more than 30 years of related experience, including developing and managing international economic development programs, trade promotion programs, and developing and managing energy sector public-private investment collaborations in emerging markets. He has long experience working as a US Government executive as well as in the private sector.

Henry recently retired from his position as a Regional Director at the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), for which he led infrastructure project development and US business promotion programs focused on capturing large-scale export and infrastructure modernization opportunities in the leading Asia, Middle East and Africa emerging markets. He directed USTDA’s comprehensive trade development programs and professional staff teams in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and previously the programs and staff in China, the Middle East, and North and Sub-Saharan Africa. His duties encompassed all aspects of institutional representation and diplomacy, developing client relationships, providing oversight and strategic planning, maintaining sector expertise, and achieving targeted results across a diverse array of economic growth programs. For more than 10 years, Henry also led USTDA’s Global Transportation Sector team, which required the creative development of new bilateral and multilateral initiatives with varied government and private sector stakeholders to accomplish business and policy goals related to the agency’s strategic mission.

Prior to joining USTDA, Henry worked to structure new public-private sector investment collaborations in the electric power industry, including managing a team that combined project finance structuring with engineering services to build greenfield power plants under new private ownership models in emerging markets. His energy sector background also includes public service positions serving as Energy Advisor at the US Agency for International Development’s Asia Bureau and as Program Officer at both Winrock International Institute and at the Tennessee Valley Authority. In his Program Officer roles, he worked to develop power project feasibility and investment programs, working with both organizations’ international renewable energy and environment divisions. Henry holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University.

Representative Experience

• Led and expanded USTDA’s US-China Aviation Cooperation Program, a private-public partnership providing more than 40 US member companies and four US Government agencies with an innovative platform for commercial and high-level policy engagement in China’s rapidly growing aviation sector; resulting technical and skills development programs led to more than $1.5 million in exports to China
• Working through the US India Aviation Cooperation Program, organized a rapid-deployment capacity development and international safety compliance initiative to assist India’s Civil Aviation Authority with regaining an FAA Category 1 safety rating in 2015,
• Led the implementation of a 10-year, multi-phase technical assistance program for regulatory modernization with Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, designed to achieve an FAA Category 1 safety rating and economic authority for direct flight access to the US by Vietnamese air carriers; also organized service planning programs and specialized business missions to assist a Vietnamese air carrier and Vietnamese airports with successful modernization initiatives
• Working with the US aircraft engine industry, succeeded in an uphill campaign to deploy official US Government training grant support targeted at Emirates’ industry-leading A380 engine procurement
• Led USTDA efforts, with the US FAA and Department of Transportation, on development of a multi-year initiative for the Asia-Pacific region through which technical capacity development programs and trade missions focused on complex aviation safety challenges and growth opportunities were implemented; results included Philippines regaining an FAA Category 1 safety rating
• Working with Philippine and US Government transportation security agencies, launched a new US technical cooperation assistance program for aviation security, targeting Philippine international compliance requirements and US trade interests
• Created numerous new programs to assist public and private energy and transportation sector infrastructure developers with forming business relationships with US exporters, specialized US Government agencies, multilateral banks, and others, including
• Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Infrastructure Collaboration Initiative in 3^rd countries
• India Smart Cities development portfolio
• Clean energy and climate change-responsive portfolios in the priority markets of China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Pakistan
• Rail and Urban Transportation infrastructure portfolios in India, Vietnam and Indonesia