Management & Team

Mr. Philip de Leon

Mr. de Leon is President of Trade Connections International LLC (www.tradeconnectionsinternational.com) a Washington, DC based international trade & business development consultant who assists companies work abroad and foreign companies work in the United States. Mr. de Leon elaborates business, marketing, project management and public relations strategies, seeks financing for projects, and gathers critical information for his clients.

Mr. de Leon spent ten years with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Business Information Service for the Newly Independent States (BISNIS) in Washington, DC rising to the position of Director. BISNIS was part of the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service and served as the U.S. Government’s primary market information center for U.S. companies exploring export and investment opportunities in Russia and Eurasia. Since its opening in 1992, BISNIS facilitated more than $4.5 billion worth of U.S. exports and overseas investments.

Mr. de Leon is a regular commentator on RT TV on U.S. relations with China and France and on energy issues. Mr. de Leon is also speaker at conferences and a contributor to finance, energy and IT publications and websites, writing on business opportunities, geo-strategic issues and on attracting export financing for Eurasian transactions. His recent contributions on Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were for Global Trade Review (www.GTReview.com), Marchmont News (Marchmontnews.com) and Trade Finance Magazine (www.tradefinancemagazine.com). His articles on energy topics have been syndicated but can also be found at www.oilprice.com.

Mr. de Leon was educated in France where he earned a law degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris as well as a graduate degree in Russian Language and Studies from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris. In 1996 he earned a Master’s Degree (LLM) in International Law from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Law.

Mr. de Leon has traveled extensively to Russia and Central Asia since 1983. In 2004, he organized conferences in Moscow and St. Petersburg on doing business in Russia’s regions; in 2005 he ran conferences in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan on doing business in Central Asia. For this work, he was awarded the Department of Commerce’s Bronze Award for Superior Federal Service in 2005. Most recently, the events he worked on focused on Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Mr. de Leon is fluent in English, French and Russian and is conversant in Spanish.

Mr. Mark Shulgov

Mr. Shulgov, President of Foreign Trade Alliance LLC - a consultancy agency based in Tomsk, Siberia - became in 2009 an Affiliated Partner of Trade Connections International LLC for Siberia, Russia.

A few years earlier Mr. Shulgov worked under Mr. de Leon's lead as a Representative in Russia for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s BISNIS. He possesses more than ten years of diversified experience in international trade, market analysis, investment and development consulting, including positions in public and private institutions.

During more than four years of service with BISNIS, Mr. Shulgov provided business consulting to US and Russian companies interested in economic collaboration, identified and processed trade and search for partner leads, organized visits of US government officials and businessmen, and on monthly basis updated commercial newsletters. He facilitated a number of international transactions and investment projects, prepared over 40 articles on commercial and investment opportunities in Russia, trained new BISNIS Representatives, and made public presentations during US and Russian outreaches.

After BISNIS, Mr. Shulgov was invited back to the Regional Administration, where he took the lead of the Inter-Regional Relations Committee. He was engaged in the development and implementation of the territory's interregional relations strategy. Mr. Shulgov also dealt with protocol and negotiation issues and prepared collaboration agreements between regions of Russia and Asia. Since 2008 he has been occupying the position of Commercial Director in a small Russian machine building holding engaged in engineering and custom manufacturing of technological equipment and metal ware.

In the early 2000s Mr. Shulgov served as Deputy Chief for External Relations in a mid-size Siberian company engaged in commercialization of scientific developments in medicine, and later occupied Senior Expert's position in Foreign Relations of the Government of the Tomsk region, where he dealt with analysis and coordination of international economic activities of local companies.

In 1997 Mr. Shulgov graduated with distinctions in international relations and foreign languages from the Tomsk State University, and started his career in marketing and sales of the Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises, a flagship of the Russian nuclear complex. There he managed the fulfillment of international and domestic contracts for high-tech chemical products, being also responsible for marketing research and advertisement. At the same time Mr. Shulgov continued his studies and in addition to taking a number of business and foreign language courses, he pursued a one-year long specialized professional course in economy and management under the Russian President's Management Training Initiative from the Moscow State Institute of Engineering and Physics. Mr. Shulgov also received some business training in the UK.

Mr. Shulgov is fluent in Russian and English, and is conversant in Japanese.

Additional Partners

Trade Connections International LLC maintains a network of highly skilled business partners including attorneys, bankers, investors, translators, etc. that can easily be brought on board for specific projects to address all relevant issues.