Ian Paul Steff hails from the nexus of technology partnerships, innovation policy, investment attraction, economic development, and international trade. He is a veteran executive with significant experience in government and industry. Mr. Steff is President and CEO of mySilicon Compass, LLC, a strategic consulting practice that engages clients seeking to advance their technological competitiveness; grow international sales and market share; create and foster public-private partnerships; and expand jobs, advanced manufacturing, and research and development investments in emerging growth sectors in the United States.

 

Mr. Steff also serves as a Senior Advisor for Advanced Manufacturing and International Trade at Bose Public Affairs Group and as an Executive Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Ross Acquisition Corp II, as publicly listed.

 

He most recently served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service following his unanimous confirmation by the United States Senate. In this role, Mr. Steff led a team of 1,400 trade and investment professionals based in more than 100 U.S. cities and 70 countries focused on export promotion, advocacy on behalf of U.S. companies competing for foreign government procurements, investment attraction, and trade barrier removal. Mr. Steff also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing. During his time at the Department, the team Mr. Steff led assisted more than 77,000 U.S. exporters, facilitated $296 billion in U.S. exports and investment, and supported 1.3 million American jobs, as reported to the Office of Management and Budget. His team received two Department Gold Medals for extraordinary performance as presented by the Secretary of Commerce.

 

Prior to federal government service, Mr. Steff held senior roles in the administration of then-Governor Pence and Governor Holcomb. He was named the State of Indiana’s first Chief Innovation Officer and was Executive Vice President of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation where he led the international investment attraction team and innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives. Mr. Steff has served as a founding member, director, or advisor to more than a dozen public-private R&D consortia involving semiconductors, energy storage, composite materials, autonomous transportation, nanotechnology, and advanced manufacturing.

 

He worked for the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) for nearly a decade, serving in a variety of capacities including Vice President of Global Policy and Technology Partnerships. The SIA, governed by twenty-two leading U.S. semiconductor CEOs, is the leading trade association representing chip companies in the United States.  Mr. Steff supported successful technology partnerships between industry, government, and universities to ensure U.S. competitiveness in the nanotechnology era, while staffing the SIA’s Technology Strategy Committee comprised of more than twenty chief technology officers. He oversaw SIA’s industry statistics, market analysis, and economics program, serving as the U.S. appointed executive member for the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics program. He served as the U.S. secretariat at the World Semiconductor Council, comprised of leading companies and associations from Europe, Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S and was Executive Chairman of the U.S. Information Technology Office in Beijing. He started his professional career in Washington, D.C. as a member of the trade staff of the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

 

Mr. Steff has served on the Executive Committee of the International Technology Roadmap on Semiconductors, and on advisory boards at IUPUI, Purdue University, and Rochester Institute of Technology. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Battery Innovation Center and a founding Board Member of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation. He served as an Executive Advisor to the FlexTech Alliance, supporting their successful $171 million bid to the Department of Defense to host a Manufacturing USA institute, now known as NextFlex.

 

Mr. Steff serves on the inaugural advisory board of the George Scalise Center of Excellence for Semiconductors at the Purdue Research Foundation. He is a member of the Chairman’s Circle and Nausbaum Society of the Indianapolis Zoo where he serves on the Public Engagement Committee. Mr. Steff graduated magna cum laude from American University where he earned a B.A. in International Studies and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Tau Delta. He completed graduate work at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., and received a M.A. in International Science and Technology Policy from the George Washington University.