Our Team

David Máthé

Director of International Development

David Máthé is a seasoned economic development professional with over 30 years of experience in international trade, serving the State of Delaware. He is the Director of International Development, where he proactively assists small and medium-sized Delaware businesses in developing export markets and expanding global export volumes. He organizes and leads trade missions worldwide, promoting Delaware and assisting Delaware exporters in entering new markets. He manages Delaware’s Sister State relationships in Japan and India and organizes and manages Gubernatorial trade missions overseas. David is Past President of SIDO, the national organization under the umbrella of the Council of State Governments of state trade directors; a former member of the Mid Atlantic District Export Council; former chair of the Eastern Trade Council, a marketing initiative among the 10 Northeastern U.S. states and was the 2012 Class President of the Council of State Governments’ Eastern Leadership Academy.

Emma Pautler

Marketing Director

Emma Pautler is a communications specialist and project manager. She specializes in digital marketing and creates all the web and email communications for Export Delaware. She assists in the project management of the state’s SBA export grant and trade programs. Previous to her position with the Delaware Department of State, she worked with several Delaware small companies doing business development and sales and marketing. Emma holds a B.S. from the University of Delaware Alfred Learner College of Business and Economics.

Emma serves on the marketing committee of the Millennial Summit and on the board of Spur Impact Association.

Richard Zurba

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Africa (Sub-Saharan Africa Markets)

Richard Zurba has been providing trade and investment solutions to government and commercial clients since January 1999 in the sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean regions. Over the course of his career, Richard has personal experience in export selling into over 20 African countries. He is the founder and director Zurcom International, a trade facilitation and trade investment advisory services company located in South Africa. The firm assists companies to enter the sub-Saharan Africa markets successfully.

David Garay

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Africa (Maghreb Countries)

David Garay is Managing Director of Indegate Consulting, headquartered in Morocco. He has more than 16 years of experience helping and accompanying American companies to access the African continent. David will serve Delaware exporters in the Maghreb countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Sudan) and Egypt. David speaks fluent English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Angela Foley

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Australia and New Zealand

Angela Foley has worked in the international trade arena for over 25 years. She started her career with the Australian Trade Commission in London where she spent several years assisting Australian exporters to win business in Europe. She established Foley & Associates Pty Ltd, a bespoke trade advisory consultancy, in Sydney in 2002. The company’s primary focus is to support regional and national government trade promotion agencies, and individual companies, to successfully do business in Australia and New Zealand. To date, Foley and Associates has helped over 1000 organizations expand to Australia. Read more about Angela’s work with Delaware’s small businesses.

Ludovic Ortuno

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Canada

Ludovic Ortuno is Delaware’s trade representative in Canada, and has represented the State since 2014. Ludovic is a seasoned international trade and development professional in the Montreal, Canada area. A native of France, Ludovic attended the University of Montreal and went on to work with the manufacturing group Bourgeat-Matfer, where he developed an expertise in transaction costs related to international trade.

Ludovic has more than ten years of experience working with premier international trade and development agencies, which has given him an extensive understanding of launching new products in Canada and other markets. He is fluent in English, French and Spanish. Read more about Ludo’s work with Delaware businesses. 

Christelle Maffre

Delaware’s Trade Representative in France

Christelle Maffre is the CEO and Founder of Maffre International Development. Christelle has over 20 years of experience in international business development (trade and investment). She spent 14 years aboard (USA and Belgium). Christelle has a Master’s degree in cross-cultural negotiation from the University of Aix-Marseille, France. She is fluent in English and French.

Sebastian Hass

Delaware’s Trade Representative Office in Germany

In addition, Delaware businesses have Sebastian Hass in the Germany Office. Sebastian is a Partner and marketing consulting at PM & Partners. PM & Partners has a long-standing track record in the field of business development. The firm supports companies worldwide to implement strategies with lead generation, PR and online marketing.

Markus Wellmann

Delaware’s Trade Representative Office in Germany

Delaware businesses have an outstanding resource to help them explore expansion opportunities in Germany — economic development and trade expert Markus Wellmann of PM & Partners. PM & Partners is a marketing consulting and market research firm founded in 1974. They provide strategic support in marketing and business development to companies around the world.

Markus Wellmann is the Senior Consultant & Project Manager at PM & Partners. The firm consults with companies worldwide on developing and implementing strategic business development efforts internationally. Read more about how Markus and PM&P have helped Delaware small businesses.

Declan Barry

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Ireland and the UK

Declan Barry is the State’s trade representative in Ireland and the UK. Declan has over a decade of experience in international business development across Europe, Asia and North America, working in diverse sectors such as fintech, medtech, legal services and cyber security.

In his career Declan has worked to attract more than 5000 jobs into Northern Ireland and more than £300m in export sales were secured for Northern Ireland companies between 2008 and 2015.

He holds a degree in International Marketing as well as a Master’s degree in Executive Leadership from Ulster University, and a leadership degree from the Global Leadership Institute at Boston College. Read more about how Declan has worked with Delaware’s small businesses.

Luigi Mercuri

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Italy

Luigi has been advising Governmental Organizations, Economic Development Agencies, Special Economic Zones, Industrial and Tech Parks, Funds, and Companies in internationalization, market-entry strategies, trade facilitation, advocacy, and expansion processes since 2010.

Miguel de Regil

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Latin America

Miguel brings more than four decades of international trade experience to the position, with extensive knowledge of consumer and industrial markets throughout Latin America.

Miguel earned his MBA from the University of the Americas in Mexico City and has gone on to a successful career in marketing and business development in the region, including tenure as the international sales director of Rubbermaid. He has years of hands-on experience in marketing, field sales and management in Mexico and the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. This experience, coupled with his extensive network, make Miguel an ideal liaison to assist Delaware companies identify opportunities and provide support in the region. Read more about how Miguel has worked with Delaware’s small businesses.

Terry Potter

Delaware’s Trade Representative in the Netherlands

Terry Potter, IBDG’s Trade Director, uses skills gained throughout her career working in international trade organizations to promote and assist companies looking to expand onto the world stage. Born and educated in London, Terry has gathered experience of working with international companies, gained an excellent perspective of commercial business and honed her organizational talent and ability to work with both clients and contacts throughout the world.

Potter heads up the consultancy team on IBDG’s international trade contracts and has directed a number of successful trade development programs. Terry developed her skills in research across a wide range of sectors and geographic areas during her early career, being instrumental in the signing of dozens of lucrative export contracts. She has extensive experience in accessing key decision-makers in leading companies, engaging with them, and gaining a deep understanding of their business agenda.

Joost van Dam

Delaware’s Trade Representative in the Netherlands

Joost van Dam is the president of the Netherlands Trade Commission and IBDG’s Senior Consultant in the Netherlands. He has a legal background and has been active in international trade and international trade services for over 35 years, offering a combination of advice and implementation of international strategy and international plans, and export coaching.

Joost has assisted hundreds of foreign companies to enter the Benelux countries and develop their international trade activities across all industry sectors. Joost’s primary activities over the years have been B2B matchmaking and partner searches, the development of strategic partnerships, export coaching and consultancy, organisation of trade missions, trade fair participation and market research. He has broad industry knowledge and is very familiar with the various sales channels and routes to market in the Netherlands.

Cedric Fromont

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Poland

Cedric Fromont is Managing Partner at Valians International, a Polish-based consulting company with over 30 years of experience in market entry and market expansion support services in Central and Eastern Europe. Cedric speaks fluent English, Polish, and French and is an accredited expert in Central and Eastern Europe by numerous institutions and trade organizations worldwide.

Ken Yang

Delaware’s Trade Representative in South Korea

Ken is a trade expert with extensive knowledge in business development, market research, marketing and investment advisory services for private and public businesses. He assists Delaware businesses in promoting their products and services to Korea by providing trade and economic development, market research, financial and investment advisory, public relations and communications, social media marketing, trade show and trade mission organization, and education services.

Ken graduated with an MBA in International Business from Sogang Graduate School of Business Administration, Korea, and has over two decades of experience in economic development and investment, international marketing and public relations and communications. Read more about Ken’s work with Delaware’s small businesses.

Sarath Menon

Delaware’s Trade Representative in Southeast Asia

Sarath is the Founder and Managing Director of Orissa International Pte Ltd., an international trade consulting firm headquartered in Singapore with satellite offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. For twenty years, Orissa International has been supporting government trade promotion agencies and companies from around the world to increase their exports to Southeast Asia. Prior to founding Orissa International, Sarath was the Country Director of the U.S.-Asia Environmental Partnership (USAEP) program in Singapore, which focused on trade development, regulatory policy and business facilitation within the environmental industry in Southeast Asia. His achievements in the program were recognized in 1997 when he received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Government for his work in promoting the exports of American products and services to Asia. Read more about Sarath’s work with Delaware businesses.