People on the Move spotlights trailblazers in standardization, highlighting their latest achievements, advancements, and contributions to the standards and conformance community.
Elise Owen, a former employee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), has been named to the position of Standards Executive at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an ANSI government member. The standards executive for each federal agency coordinates the agency's participation in voluntary consensus standards bodies and ensures that activity aligns with the agency's goals and mission.
Ms. Owen has an extensive background in the facilitation of international standardization activities in both the public and private sectors, including unique expertise in the Chinese and broader global markets. She most recently served as associate vice president, global strategy and analysis, at the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), an ANSI member organization. She oversaw AdvaMed's activities in China with the objectives of increasing opportunities for the medical technology industry in China while supporting the country's long-term health and development goals.
Prior to AdvaMed, Ms. Owen was ANSI's director of international development, playing a critical role in the establishment of the Institute's ongoing activities in China. During her seven-year tenure, she worked to increase transparency and promote best practices for standardization, regulatory, testing, and certification programs in China, India, and other emerging economies. She negotiating memoranda of understanding between ANSI and government agencies in China and India, and managed the successful implementation of numerous capacity-building projects internationally. Notably, she worked jointly with the governments of China, India, and Korea to launch the StandardsPortal, ANSI's free online resource that helps companies navigate market access requirements in these key markets.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Owen was a specialist on standards and technical barriers to trade at the
U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA). She advocated on behalf of U.S. industry positions in government meetings such as the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) and backstopped key U.S. interventions in the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Ms. Owen is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds an MBA from the
University of Hawaii at Manoa. She served in the U.S. Army as a linguist and is certified in
Mandarin Chinese and Japanese by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.
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