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AZDIC, and its national umbrella the Global Defense & Industry Coalition— GDIC— were built for a different kind of convening. Not to meet for the sake of meeting, but to put the right people in the right room at the right time for conversations that produce real outcomes. That means connecting manufacturers directly to procurement decision-makers, walking companies into conversations they couldn’ t access alone, and driving policy change on supply chain and critical minerals. Through GDIC’ s growing national chapter model, that access is now available to defense industry companies across the country.
Which brings me back to Ukraine. That first train ride led to a Memorandum of Understanding signed at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington with President Zelenskyy in attendance, delegations of Arizona companies traveling to Kyiv, and joint venture conversations between U. S. industry and Ukraine’ s defense establishment. In January 2024, I was personally appointed as the sole American on the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian Defense Industry— a role I hold in my individual capacity, and take seriously as an obligation to transparency and longterm industrial development.
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