The International Funds Conference produced an enviable list of internationally respected speakers for the 2009 event, and we have been extremely honoured by the number of world class speakers that have made themselves available for our 2010 conference. Our goal is to make this into an annual event that every major player in our industry will have marked on their calender as ‘must attend’ and we have taken a big step forward in pursuit of that goal with the speakers and panelists we have assembled this year.

Browse through the speaker gallery to the right to see a short biogaphy of each speaker as you roll over their picture, and click on the picture to see a full bio and details on their presentation.

Mark V. Vlasic
Senior Fellow & Adjunct Professor of Law | Georgetown University
Partner | Ward & Ward PLLC

Mark V. Vlasic has served as a soldier, a lawyer, a professor, and a diplomat, and has worked for the White House, the Pentagon, the World Bank, the United Nations, and a large international law firm.  He is currently a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for Law, Science and Global Security, and a partner at Ward & Ward pllc, where he heads the firm’s international practice, and focuses on international law, international trade, business diplomacy, and stolen asset recovery matters.

Mark's private practice background includes: participating in asset recovery, cartel, foreign corruption, and securities fraud investigations in the United States and Europe; working with international organizations, foreign governments and non-governmental organizations regarding abuses of the INTERPOL "red notice" system by the leader of a totalitarian regime; providing advice regarding business diplomacy and international banking issues; and, advising clients on the application and enforcement of U.S. economic sanctions and embargos, export controls, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Mark has also advised companies subject to investigations and enforcement actions by the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, Justice, and Treasury, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Prior to his return to academia and private practice, Mark was a public sector specialist at the World Bank Group, where he served as head of operations of the StAR Secretariat, an initiative launched by President Robert Zoellick and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to help developing countries recover stolen assets from grand corruption cases (Jean-Claude Duvalier/Haiti, etc.).  A member of StAR’s management team, Mark was responsible for country engagements on four continents, and furthered bilateral relations with major financial centers, foreign governments and civil society organizations.

Before joining the Bank, Mark was one of only 14 professionals competitively selected to serve as a 2006-2007 White House Fellow.  As part of his nonpartisan fellowship, Mark served as a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, where he focused on foreign policy, bilateral relations, and assistance to the President’s Special Envoy to Sudan.  In recognition of his contributions to the Department, including being a “valuable member of Secretary of Defense’s official delegations to Europe, Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and to NATO Defense Ministerial meetings,” Mark was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service by Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Prior to his government service, Mark practiced law in the white collar, public policy, banking, and international trade practice groups at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and served as a prosecution attorney at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where he was a member of the Slobodan Milosevic and General Radislav Krstic (Srebrenica) trial and investigative teams, and focused on mass executions and genocide in Bosnia.  As a U.S. Army officer, he has been attached to reserve units on Capitol Hill and at the Defense Attaché Office at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague, and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal.  Mark has also served in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, where he worked on WTO Ministerial issues.

A faculty member at Georgetown, Mark has taught as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and has lectured at numerous academic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic, including Oxford University, Yale Law School, the NATO School, the U.S. Military Academy, the Baltic Defense College, and the Danish Center for Human Rights.  In 2005, he was part of a select team of international experts that helped train the Iraqi judges that tried Saddam Hussein.

Mark has provided legal commentary to CNN, CBS, FOX News, NPR, CTV, bloggingheads.tv <http://bloggingheads.tv> , Voice of America, the History News Network, The Washington Post and USA Today, and been published by Foreign Policy, The New Republic, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, The Tax Lawyer, USA Today, Legal Times, the Toronto Star, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Ventura County Star, and the Sudan Tribune.  He is a member of the Asset Recovery Experts Network and the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy, is a Fellow in the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Humanity in Action Foundation, the Board of Trustees of the Atlas Service Corps, the International Advisory Council of the Fulbright Academy of Science & Technology, the Advisory Council of the Public International Law & Policy Group, the Advisory Board of Luke’s Wings, the Board of Counselors for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, is listed in Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in International Humanitarian Law/International Criminal Law, and was profiled as an "International Lawyer" in Esquire magazine.  Mark has been awarded the Frank Wheat Award for his leadership and dedication to pro bono and community service and the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, and has worked, studied and travelled in more than 75 countries.

After attending public schools in California, Mark studied business, theology and government at Georgetown University while on an Army ROTC scholarship, and received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center.  He holds a Certificate in International Law from The Hague Academy of International Law and conducted post-doctorate research at Universiteit Leiden as a NAF-Fulbright Scholar to the Netherlands.  Mark is a member of the Bars of California, the District of Columbia, and the Supreme Court of the United States, and serves on the Term Member Advisory Committee at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Funds Conference Presentation
Fighting impunity: Recent international asset recovery efforts to combat corruption By Mark Vlasic | Published by Cayman Financial Review