In its second full year of operations, the City of Atlanta’s Office of International Affairs hosted an average of more than two foreign delegations per week, results that drove an expansion of the office staff from three people to four.
The 115 delegations hailed from 49 countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe, boosting the total during the 2015 fiscal year by 65 percent over the previous year, when it averaged about one inbound trip per week, according to the office’s 2014-15 report.
“In order to continue raising Atlanta’s global profile, we must build and maintain relationships with our international counterparts,” Mayor Kasim Reed wrote in the report’s opening letter.
To help spread the workload, the city this week announced the hiring of Taylor Woodruff, who is relocating from Washington, where he worked for Sister Cities International as membership manager. Mr. Woodruff graduated from Arkansas State University with a bachelor’s degree in international business management and has worked for five years in international affairs. With him coming in as international affairs coordinator, Bettina Gardner has been promoted to deputy director of international affairs, while Claire Angelle retains her position as director.
Along with official delegations, the city helped host 50 members of the Young African Leaders Initiative, 20 middle school students from the sister city of Toulouse, France, for a language exchange program and city leaders from South Africa and Korea focused on female entrepreneurship and emergency management, respectively. Heads of government and state visiting during the fiscal year included the Enda Kenny, prime minister of Ireland, and Donaldson Romeo, premier of Montserrat, a Caribbean island territory of the United Kingdom.
The city also opened an office of immigrant affairs to better integrate foreign-born communities into the life of the city.
But it wasn’t all reactive or limited to this side of the ocean. Mayor Kasim Reed participated in outbound missions to Israel, where he touted Atlanta’s advantages on cybersecurity, and Cuba, where he worked to put the city on the map for business and cultural exchanges as ties warm with the U.S. Having attended the high-level Davos meeting in early 2014, he also traveled to World Economic Forum events in Tianjin, China, and Mexico City.
The city also played a role in launching the Metro Export Plan, a coordinated effort supported by research from the Brookings Institution to help companies establish and expand export operations in the 29-county metro Atlanta region.
Click here to view or download the annual report from the city’s International Affairs Office.
To learn more about the office, click here or email the office at globalbiz@AtlantaGa.Gov.
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