SPEAKER BIOS

Ela Eskinazi is the Head of Sustainable Finance & Clean Energy at Bank of the West/BMO Harris Commercial Bank. She is responsible for the strategy and execution of sustainable finance activities and solutions across the bank. Before this role, Ela worked at Bank of America for 15 years, most recently as Head of Business Development ESG & Sustainable Finance in North America. Prior to banking, she worked at GE Healthcare in commercial leadership roles, and attained her black-belt certification. Ela has a MSc. degree from Purdue University and BSc. from Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Ela serves as Chairwoman of the Board at Bridge to Turkiye Fund, an education-focused non-profit organization serving underprivileged children and youth.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elasahineskinazi/

Ludmilla (Milla) Kasulke draws on her experience in both domestic and international policy to assist clients on a wide range of trade and investment matters. Milla provides multinational corporations, sovereign governments and entities, and quasi-government entities with advice on a wide range of trade policy, legal, and regulatory issues and investment programs, including implementation of the CHIPS Act and semiconductor incentives, as well as clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.  She also regularly advises clients on the impacts of current and potential new trade actions, including Section 301 and 232 tariffs and trade preference programs. Milla also regularly counsels clients on the impacts of current and potential new trade negotiations, including the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and US-Japan and -EU talks.

Prior to law school, Milla was the special assistant to the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she gained first-hand experience in the daily operations of the executive branch. While at the council, she worked closely with the chairman and his team of policy advisors in the development and management of significant administration policies and programs, such as the Major Economies Meetings on Energy Security and Climate Change.

While in law school, Milla served as the assistant to former White House Counsel and former US Ambassador to the European Union C. Boyden Gray. She was elected as a vice president on the executive board of the Student Bar Association, where she represented part-time student interests. Additionally, she was an active member of the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy staff, where she served as a symposium director.

Joe Kulenovic manages Florida’s network of overseas offices and is responsible for promoting international trade and foreign direct investment. Z. Joe Kulenovic is a senior economist with over two decades of diverse professional experience in international trade and economic development, combining World Bank and USAID project know-how with hands-on experience in one of the most international US states.

Areas of specialty include international trade and investment, public-private partnerships and stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, innovation and entrepreneurship, industry value chains and cluster development, infrastructure, urban and regional development, competitiveness benchmarking, economic impact analysis, and general project management.

He has strong organizational, analytical, communication and interpersonal skills, plus a knowledge of several languages. His recent project experience outside the United States includes Canada, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

Michelle Sadeghy is a Manager on the Tax Credits & Incentives Practice within the Tax Services Advisory Group of Kaufman Rossin. As a mechanical engineer with a background in energy efficiency in commercial buildings, she helps clients qualify for various energy credits and incentives, including the 179D deduction for energy-efficient commercial buildings and the 45L energy-efficient home credit for developers. She brings over a decade of experience as a project manager and energy modeler for design an construction teams. She has worked on over 40 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects and provided energy design consulting on over 300 projects. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a Licensed Professional Mechanical Engineer (PE) in Florida and California and a National Green Building Standard (NGBS) Verifier. She is also a graduate of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Leadership Institute and an active member of ULI.

Peter Stratos is a principal in Kaufman Rossin’s International Tax department where he provides extensive knowledge to his clients on international tax planning for both individual and corporate taxes. Peter’s primary expertise in international tax is in the areas of foreign tax credit planning, residency issues, state and local issues for international and multinational businesses, expats and inpats, pre-immigration planning, transfer pricing, compensation planning, treaty positions, entity selection, organizational structuring and withholding issues. Peter is a Certified Public Accountant in Florida and Virginia. He is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Florida Institute of Public Accountants and the Virginia Society of Public Accountants.

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