Carmen Aranas
(Council Chair)
Air and Ground World Transport
With more than a decade of executive management
expertise and 20 years of experience in the Freight
Forwarding, Logistics, and Customs Brokerage industries,
Carmen Aranas possesses a unique range of skills and
experience delivering best practice management and business development
leadership to international trade and logistics organizations. She began her
career managing global accounts in export operations and transpacific trade
lane development. Her executive and senior management experience within the
global forwarding industries includes startup operations and sales for the Trans
Global Logistics, Atlanta office. Now, she is Vice President of Global Sales for
AGWorld where she leads its international businesses—including its scale markets,
focused emerging markets and import and export priorities. In her current role,
Carmen designed and led the turnaround of AGWorld’s China and Vietnam
enterprises.
As a global trade and logistics industry professional, Carmen provides a unique
blend of business and industry knowledge as evidenced by leading successful
efforts to integrate global logistics and enhanced process controls into effective
supply chain solutions. Her primary focus is on promoting value-added services
and products for an organization while maintaining compliance and ease of
supply chain movement. She works with US/International Sales and Sourcing
groups to identify and implement higher benefit and lower-cost logistics
approaches; adopts innovative concepts which create faster, more reliable
deliveries with lower costs to customers and partners. She routinely advises clients
in all areas of import trade compliance, including tariff classification, and country
of origin determinations and marking requirements. She works with companies of
all sizes and across a variety of industries to develop and implement
comprehensive, multi-faceted logistics programs that include complex cargo
operations, operating procedures and monitoring functions. Additionally, she
engages with all government agencies related to transportation, trade and the
regulation thereof (e.g., US Customs & Border Patrol, International Maritime
Organization, Department of Transportation (DOT), International Air Transport
Association (IATA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Carmen brings a wealth of knowledge on how to bridge cross-cultural differences
and drive performance in the journey to business excellence. Her more recent
experiences include a focus on key markets, like Trans-Pacific Eastbound and
Southeast Asia, to drive execution of commercial turnaround strategy in a region.
She attended the China International Import Expo in 2019 as an exhibitor to
promote trade and services and forged several important business relationships
as a result.
Carmen holds the following globally-recognized certifications: National Customs
Broker & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) Certified Customs
Specialist (CCS) and Certified Export Specialist (CES). In addition, she is an active
member of several professional organizations—International Compliance
Professionals of America (ICPA), the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders
Association of America, Inc. (NCBFAA), and Organization of Women in
International Trade (OWIT). Carmen graduated with a Master of Business
Administration (MBA) from DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of
Management and holds a B.A. in psychology from Auburn University.