Business / Asian Affairs
SUSAN AU ALLEN, PRESIDENT & CEO, US PAN ASIAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, born in China and grew up in Hong Kong, came to the United States in 1970 in response to a White House invitation. An attorney and law partner in Paul Shearman Allen & Associates of Washington, DC and Hong Kong, she is nationally recognized for her work on immigration, international trade and investments.
Mrs. Allen received her J.D. from the Antioch School of Law and an LL.M. in International Law from Georgetown University Law Center.
President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1991-1996).
She served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Advisory Committee on the Small Business Administration; and was one of 100 small business leaders invited to meet President George W. Bush and Director of National Economic Council Larry Lindsey on February 6, 2001 to discuss the conditions of the U.S. economy and the impact of the President’s tax cut proposal on small businesses.
A-Magazine voted her one of 25 most influential Asian Americans in 1999.
She is a member of the Premier Automotive Group Diversity Council; NASA Minority Business Resource Advisory Committee; the Board of Trustees of Excelsior College in New York; the Secretary’s Committee on the Future of the Workplace of the President’s Council on the 21st Century Workforce; the Kennedy Center Friends and Community Board, and the Diversity Board of the American Red Cross.
Mrs. Allen had served on the National Advisory Board of the Women’s Small Business Summit: Leader for a New Century held in Kansas City, Missouri in June 2000; the Board of Trustees of The Washington Initiative, Washington Board of Trade; the Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council; the Board of Directors of the Virginia Small Business Finance Authority; and the diversity boards of AMTRAK and the U.S. Marine Corp.
Her addresses to the 20th Anniversary of the National Minority Supplier Development Council in Cleveland (October 20, 1992), the International Asian Expo in Los Angeles (December 4, 1993), the Defense Mapping Agency in Reston, Virginia (June 16, 1994), the National Order of Women Legislators’ Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada (May 8, 1996), and the 10th Annual Excellence 2000 Awards of the US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC (May 8, 1998) were published in Vital Speeches.
Mrs. Allen’s op-eds have been published in USA Today, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, Asian Week, Asian Fortune, among others.
Mrs. Allen has appeared as a commentator on C-Span, CNN, CNBC, ABC, Fox News, “The News Hour,” PBS public affairs programs “To the Contrary” and “This is America,” and “The Editors,” a television program produced by The World Affairs Council of Montreal, Canada. Her TV appearance reaches millions of viewers in North America and Asia.
A frequent radio commentator on trade, US-China relations, Asian Americans, working women, affirmative action, recruitment of high technology professionals, scientists and engineers, and ethnic marketing strategies, Mrs. Allen’s audience includes corporate and government managers.
She also spoke as an American “ambassador” in foreign countries, on U.S. political, cultural and business topics, through the U.S. Information Service’s speaker’s bureau.
Married, with two sons, Mrs. Allen resides in McLean, Virginia and travels extensively in the United States and to Asia. She speaks and writes Chinese fluently.
