President Biden has appointed two South Asian Americans as members of the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, the White House announced yesterday (Feb. 23). Obama alumni Omar Khan and attorney and CPA Nimish Patel are among nine members who have “expertise in general trade, investment, and development issues to provide overall policy advice” to the federal agency, the White House said.
Omar Khan is a senior government and public affairs executive with more than 20 years of experience across the public and private sector and political campaigns. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President for State and Local Government Affairs at WSP, one of the world’s leading engineering and infrastructure firms, where he heads strategy, government relations, and political and civic engagement for the East Region of the U.S.
Previously, he was the executive director of the Public Engagement Unit of New York City. In that role, he led the unit, overseeing a $25 million budget and managing a team of more than 200 people. In this role, He served as senior advisor to City Hall, led the unit’s COVID-19 response, and developed a nationally replicable model for data-driven outreach, increasing accessibility to government services.
He also held several senior roles in the Obama-Biden Administration working on complex issues at the intersection of policy and politics. Some of his roles include Assistant United States Trade Representative for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement at the White House, Director of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations for the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, and Director of Public Engagement at the Environmental Protection Agency. He has additionally held senior and advisory roles in major presidential, gubernatorial, and mayoral campaigns including President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.
Nimish Patel is the chair of the Corporate and Securities Department at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, LLP, a law firm based in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. His experience includes mergers and acquisitions for private and public companies, angel and venture capital financing, IPOs, and other financing and corporate restructurings.
He currently advises private businesses and publicly traded exchange listed companies on governance and regulatory filing requirements. Previously, he was a CPA and a senior auditor in the Orange County, California office of Deloitte working on private and public company audits and other attestations services.
He was elected and previously served on the School Board of Education for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. During his tenure, hewas involved in making education policy decisions affecting the 11,000 school district students, overseeing a $100 million operating budget and a $300 million capital expenditure budget.
He is the past president and trustee of the American India Foundation in Los Angeles and the past president and member of the South Asian Bar Association of Southern California. He received his J.D./M.B.A. degrees from University of San Diego and undergraduate degree from University of Southern California.
Source : americankahani