Speaker Bio
Kevin Rudd joined the Asia Society Policy Institute as its inaugural president in January 2015.
Mr. Rudd served as Australia’s 26th prime minister from 2007 to 2010, then as foreign minister from 2010 to 2012, and prime minister again in 2013. He led Australia’s response during the global financial crisis, the only major developed economy not to go into recession— and helped found the G20.
As prime minister and foreign minister, Mr. Rudd was active in global and regional foreign policy leadership. He was a driving force in the expansion of the East Asia Summit (EAS) to include the United States and Russia in 2010. He also initiated the concept of transforming the EAS into a wider Asia-Pacific community to help manage deep-rooted tensions in Asia by building over time the institutions and culture of common security. He served as chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM), a two-year review of the United Nations system, releasing the ICM chair’s report “UN 2030: Rebuilding Order in a Fragmenting World,” in August 2016.
In 2014, Mr. Rudd was a senior fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he completed a major policy paper entitled “US-China 21: The Future of US-China Relations Under Xi Jinping.” He is a distinguished fellow at Chatham House in London, a distinguished statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. and a distinguished fellow at the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago.
Mr. Rudd is a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s group of eminent persons. He is proficient in Mandarin, serves as a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s China Council. He co-authored a report of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, and chairs the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragile States. He also remains actively engaged in indigenous reconciliation in Australia.
Mr. Rudd served as Australia’s 26th prime minister from 2007 to 2010, then as foreign minister from 2010 to 2012, and prime minister again in 2013. He led Australia’s response during the global financial crisis, the only major developed economy not to go into recession— and helped found the G20.
As prime minister and foreign minister, Mr. Rudd was active in global and regional foreign policy leadership. He was a driving force in the expansion of the East Asia Summit (EAS) to include the United States and Russia in 2010. He also initiated the concept of transforming the EAS into a wider Asia-Pacific community to help manage deep-rooted tensions in Asia by building over time the institutions and culture of common security. He served as chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM), a two-year review of the United Nations system, releasing the ICM chair’s report “UN 2030: Rebuilding Order in a Fragmenting World,” in August 2016.
In 2014, Mr. Rudd was a senior fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he completed a major policy paper entitled “US-China 21: The Future of US-China Relations Under Xi Jinping.” He is a distinguished fellow at Chatham House in London, a distinguished statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. and a distinguished fellow at the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago.
Mr. Rudd is a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s group of eminent persons. He is proficient in Mandarin, serves as a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s China Council. He co-authored a report of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, and chairs the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragile States. He also remains actively engaged in indigenous reconciliation in Australia.
Full Name
Kevin Rudd
