0 %

Mr. Stanley Straughter serves on the boards of numerous esteemed organizations. With over 40 years of experience in International Business Development, he is recognized as an expert in the field of international development. Mr. Straughter has lived and worked in various countries across Africa, Central Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Russia. As a finance specialist, he has rendered services to foreign governments focused on governance and transparency, collaborated with Finance Ministers, and offered advice on trade policy, foreign direct investment, economic growth, and cooperative economic development.

Mr. Straughter has considerable experience working with both bilateral and multilateral financial development organizations, including the World Bank, USAID, the African Development Foundation, the African Development Bank, the Eastern Caribbean Investment Promotion Service, the U.S. Trade and Development Administration, OPIC, and the Export-Import Bank. He has worked in a variety of countries, including Cameroon, Egypt, India, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Israel, Niger, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Senegal, Togo, the Virgin Islands, South Africa, Russia, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Liberia, Nigeria, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Mr. Straughter provides advisory services to both public and private sector organizations on matters related to international trade, including exporting and importing, market analysis, and developing market penetration strategies for emerging markets, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. He organizes investment promotion seminars in the United States on behalf of developing countries, with a focus on African and Caribbean nations. His successful trade missions have included visits to Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Liberia, Jamaica, Brazil, and Nigeria. Additionally, Mr. Straughter specializes in addressing the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises in both developing countries and the United States.

Mr. Straughter collaborated with the late Congressman William Gray to design, implement, and direct the Minority Export Development Technical Assistance Program (MEDTAP) for the Pennsylvania Department of Commerce. MEDTAP provided management and technical assistance (MTA) to over 300 minority firms in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in International trade, exporting, importing, joint ventures, and organizing trade missions. Under Mr. Straughter’s direction, MEDTAP prepared financial packages, marketing analysis, and penetration studies and obtained loan guarantees and risk insurance, for the completion of international transactions from 1989 to 1998. Mr. Straughter also served as the Managing Director of the Minority Business Development Center (MBDC) in Washington, DC

Mr. Straughter is a major advocate for the development of United States, Africa, and Caribbean business initiatives. He has worked with the Eastern Caribbean Investment Promotion Service (ECIPS) organizing trade and investment missions to Caribbean countries. He is an original member of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) coalition that Congress passed to promote trade and investment between the United States and African countries. In the state of Pennsylvania. Mr. Straughter is a founding member of the African Caribbean Business Council, serves on the board of directors of the US Ghana Chamber of Commerce, the US Cameroon Chamber of Commerce, and serves as the Chairman of the board of the US Guinea Chamber of Commerce and the Ivorian Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Straughter is also a specialist in state and local government issues and has served as the Executive Director of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) during the Chairmanship of the late State Representative David P. Richardson, Jr. NBCSL is an organization of over 700 Black legislators from 44 states and the US Virgin Islands. Mr. Straughter has organized delegations of state legislators to African and Caribbean countries and foreign delegations to study trade and economic development issues in the United States for NBCSL. Mr. Straughter was senior advisor to the World Conference of Mayors and served as the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus Foundation.

Mr. Straughter has served as a senior advisor and worked directly with the late Reverend Leon H. Sullivan, Founder and Chairman, OIC International and the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH). Mr. Straughter participated in the design and implementation of programs in which OIC International provided training in agricultural and economic development to countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. These projects have resulted in over $75 million in funding. Mr. Straughter worked with IFESH and Rev. Sullivan in the organization of the African – African American Summits in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Gabon, and Ghana. Each IFESH Summit bought together thousands of business leaders, Africans and African-Americans to develop economic development strategies to advance the economies of sub-Sahara African Countries and to advance a global African diaspora initiative. Mr.
Straughter Also served as the Executive Director office Entrepreneurial Development Training enter (EDTC) funded by Rev. Sullivan.

Mr. Straughter is a specialist in the organization, design and financing of consumer cooperatives. He served as the Acting Director, Office of Self-Help Development, National Consumer Cooperative Bank (NCCB). In this position Mr. Straughter managed a $75 million development fund that provided equity capital and loans to cooperative business enterprises across the United States, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Mr. Straughter is one of the original founders and organizers of the Strawberry Mansion Cooperative society in Philadelphia. This cooperative was one of the first African American cooperatives founded in Philadelphia. He also designed and organized the Philadelphia OIC Cooperative Economic Development Program. Under this program Mr. Straughter trained cooperative organizers, developed cooperative and food buying clubs across Philadelphia in churches and community organizations.

While the OIC Cooperative Economic Development Program was designed to introduce low-income communities in Philadelphia to fresh food, it was also designed to develop direct marketing techniques for Pennsylvania farmers to sell their produce and products directly to consumers; to by past the high cost of marketing by the middleman. This project was funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

He has studied for a doctorate’s degree in Cooperative Economics at the Union Graduate School and traveled to Demark, Sweden and Holland to study the success of their cooperative economic systems.