APEC and the Indo-Pacific Strategy

Melissa A. Brown

Deputy Assistant Secretary

Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Melissa A. Brown is the Deputy Assistant Secretary with responsibility for the Office of Mainland Southeast Asia Affairs and the Office of Maritime Southeast Asia Affairs.

From 2019 to 2021, Melissa served as the Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., at the U.S. Mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she led an unprecedented expansion of U.S. engagement with ASEAN, as well as efforts to mobilize ASEAN to resolve the political crisis in Burma. Previously, Melissa was the Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at U.S. Embassy Singapore from 2016 to 2019, where she also served as Acting Deputy Chief of Mission for one year and oversaw execution of the historic 2018 U.S.-DPRK Singapore Summit.

A Southeast Asia expert with a strong trade policy background, Melissa was previously assigned to Jakarta, Indonesia, as the Trade and Investment Unit Chief in U.S. Embassy Jakarta’s Economic Section. In Washington, she was also detailed to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and served on the U.S. State Department’s Vietnam Desk. Her earlier overseas diplomatic assignments included: Port Louis, Mauritius, and Bangkok, Thailand.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Melissa was a corporate legal assistant. A graduate of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Melissa grew up in New Jersey and Jakarta, Indonesia. She speaks Indonesian and French and has studied Khmer (Cambodian) and Hungarian.

Matt Murray

U.S. Senior Official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Matt Murray was appointed as the U.S. Senior Official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in February 2022. In this role, he coordinates U.S. participation in APEC and also oversees the Office of Economic Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Prior to his current assignment, Matt led the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs (EB) as Senior Bureau Official from August 2021 to January 2022, and he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Trade Policy and Negotiations from September 2020 to August 2021.

Matt has focused on U.S. economic engagement with the Asia Pacific region throughout his State Department career, including as Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Counselor for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Canberra, and Special Assistant for East Asian and Pacific issues in the Office of the Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment.

Matt is a Senior Foreign Service Officer who also has served overseas in Beijing, Shanghai, Dar es Salaam and New Delhi and in Washington, D.C. as Director of the 24/7 Watch in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He has master’s degrees from the U.S. Army War College and the University of Pittsburgh and a bachelor’s degree from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.