Andrea Durkin

Founder and Principal @ Sparkplug, LLCUnited States
Andrea Durkin

Andrea Durkin is the founder and principal of Sparkplug, LLC an independent consulting firm whose clients include Fortune 200 companies in the life sciences, food and agriculture sectors as well as major industry trade associations.

She serves as Editor-in-Chief of TradeVistas, a website she launched in partnership with the Hinrich Foundation, that is dedicated to engaging the public on the role and impact of international trade in their lives and communities. She recently founded Consensus Learning, LLC which is developing a digital tool to teach trade negotiation techniques.

Andrea is a contributing writer to policy think tanks and foundations on trade policy and international development issues as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow on Global Agriculture and Food with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an Adjunct Fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and an advisor to the Economic Team at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Before launching Sparkplug, Ms. Durkin managed a global government relations team at Abbott for seven years, having previously served as a U.S. Government trade negotiator for ten years with both the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

She has proudly taught International Trade and Investment Policy since 2006 as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service program.  She is an advocate for investing in the next generation of innovative trade policy thinkers.