Margaret “Maggie” Hanson-Muse joined the US-ASEAN Business Council as Chief Operating Officer in March 2023. She oversees the Council’s strategic planning, IT, human resources, budgeting, membership, and communications operations.
Prior to joining the Council, Ms. Hanson-Muse was a senior diplomat with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC). As Regional Senior Commercial Officer in Singapore, from 2015-2019, Ms. Hanson-Muse oversaw trade policy, trade promotion and operations for DoC offices located in Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. She provided vision and strategic direction to effectively promote U.S. exports, protect U.S. commercial interests and promote U.S. investment. She designed creative trade policy and promotion programs that produced award-winning results by leveraging innovations such as blockchain, fintech and venture capital. She guided regional strategy development and execution, resource mobilization, and administered execution of financial, technology and digital programs to produce operational effectiveness.
Ms. Hanson-Muse served in India twice as the Executive Officer for the DoC’s multi-agency and second largest global operation. She identified the 2012 Companies Act as a game-changer for new-to-market exporters, women, and transparency initiatives. She used this new law as a platform to highlight export promotion opportunities as well as link it to market access priorities of diversity, good governance and standards.
From 2000-2011, as Senior Commercial Officer Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia, Ms. Hanson-Muse was an active participant in the free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations conducting research and analysis for the Telecommunications and Customs chapters (Costa Rica) and the formulation of the new Courier chapter (Peru and Colombia). She identified roadblocks to the FTA arbitration chapter in Peru and Colombia and designed and implemented trade capacity building programs to promote arbitration and defense of Intellectual Property Rights. During her career, directly or as part of a team, Ms. Hanson-Muse successfully resolved 43 Commercial Diplomacy cases including arbitration settlements in Peru and Colombia and staving off anti-WTO actions in India. In Latin America, 30 of these cases were a precondition to successfully concluding the FTA. The 30 commercial disputes were valued at more than $300 million.
From 2019-2021 she was the Commerce Chair at the Eisenhower School of National Security and Resource Strategy of the National Defense University where, as an Assistant Professor, she taught national security-related courses, Strategic Leadership, created the school’s first Transformational Leadership course, and published an article entitled “Reality Injection: The True Cost of COVID” in collaboration with four co-authors.
In 2021, she joined the Pan American Development Foundation as a Trustee and serves on the Finance and Audit Committee and the International Folk Art Market Board as a Director serving on the Strategic Planning Committee. Between 2007 and 2017, she founded the Women Corporate Directors chapters in Peru, Colombia and Myanmar and is a member of WCD Singapore Chapter. In 2022, she joined the DC Chapter of the Continental Collective, a group of successful principals who collaborate on projects for the benefit of clients, and she is a Duke Global Educator. From 2017 to 2019, Ms. Hanson-Muse was a mentor for the Milken Institute program at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh. Since 2021, she has been a volunteer mentor and facilitator for FutureLink Maryland (University of Maryland/Montgomery College). Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Commerce, Ms. Hanson-Muse worked as a sales, finance and marketing management professional at Allstate Insurance, General Electric and Sprint/Telenet.
Ms. Hanson-Muse is a second-generation diplomat, born in Calcutta, India. She is a cum laude graduate of Brandeis University with a B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Studies. She received her MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University in New York. She completed the IIX Singapore Executive Certificate Program: Financing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in Impact Investing. Ms. Hanson-Muse is fluent in Spanish and French. She has been recognized for her contributions by the U.S. Departments of Defense, Commerce and State, the Colombian Government, Pfizer, the American Chamber of Commerce, the Council of American Enterprises, and Women Corporate Directors.