ITC's Executive Director

Pamela Coke-Hamilton

    Biography

    Pamela Coke Hamilton

    Pamela Coke-Hamilton, an international trade lawyer and expert with a heart for development, has served as Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) since October 2020. Her appointment was announced by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

    Since joining the organization at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Coke-Hamilton has placed the spotlight on the fact that trade is a human story and that ITC’s work is, at its core, about transforming trade and changing lives. It is about ensuring the smallest, least developed, most vulnerable, hardest-to-reach countries have equal standing as their counterparts in global trade, and that their small businesses are empowered to achieve their full potential.

    As ITC Executive Director, she co-chairs the Working Group on Our Common Agenda, the UN Secretary-General’s blueprint for global cooperation to reinvigorate multilateralism and serve as a booster shot for the Sustainable Development Goals. She also serves as a Broadband Commissioner for Sustainable Development – an ITU-led public-private partnership fostering digital cooperation to achieve universal connectivity – and as co-chair of the Broadband Commission Working Group on Connectivity for MSMEs.

    Before joining ITC, Ms. Coke-Hamilton served as UNCTAD’s Director of the Division on International Trade and Commodities, having worked extensively with the private sector, government and academia across African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to build their trade-related institutional strength.

    She began her career in Jamaica’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, with her first posting at the Permanent Mission of Jamaica in Geneva during the Uruguay Round Negotiations. She later served in Washington, D.C., at various regional institutions, including as Director of Trade, Tourism and Competitiveness at the Organization of American States and as Regional Hub Coordinator for the Caribbean in the Integration and Trade Department of the Inter-American Development Bank.

    As Executive Director of the Caribbean Export Development Agency, Ms. Coke-Hamilton was instrumental in fostering the growth of regional businesses, enhancing their capacity to increase exports, attract investment and transform to meet requirements of the new international trading system. Notably, she established the Women Empowered through Export (WE-Xport) platform to address the disadvantages that women-owned businesses face in accessing markets.

    She holds a Juris Doctor in Law from Georgetown University and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of the West Indies. She is the founder of the Shridath Ramphal Centre and the Masters in International Trade Policy programme at the University of the West Indies. When she is not working, she enjoys sports, art, history, reading and traveling.

    For the latest, follow the Executive Director on X at @CokeHamilton.

    I am more practical than theoretical. At ITC we translate international trade rules and regulations into concrete trade opportunities. Through capacity building, technical assistance and empowerment, ITC makes trade work for people on the ground.
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    In the media

    internationaldiplomat.com  15 June 2024

    Interview with Pamela Coke-Hamilton

    radiocite.ch 7 June 2024 Pamela Coke-Hamilton
    internationaldiplomat.com 15 June 2024

    Interview with Pamela Coke-Hamilton

    nytimes.com 5 March 2024 Can Europe save forests without killing jobs in Malaysia?

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