Pascal Lamy Keynote Speaker

Pascal Lamy is a veteran practitioner of European politics and International trade having led the WTO as Director-General and served as a European Commissioner for trade. He currently holds the record as the longest serving WTO Director-General having been unanimously re-elected by the WTO General Council for a second four year term in 2009.

Currently, Pascal is the Vice President of the Paris Peace Forum, which he previously chaired, and of the European branch of the Brunswick Group. He coordinates the Jacques Delors Institutes (Paris, Berlin, Brussels).

He is also President or member of various boards with a global, European or French vocation (European Starfish Mission (ocean), Mo Ibrahim Foundation, European Climate Foundation, IFPRI, PECC, CERRE, TMEA, Antarctica 2020, Transparency International, Alpbach Forum, Beijing Forum, World Trade Forum, WEF, Global Risks, Europaeum, Collegium international, Musiciens du Louvre, Institut Mendes-France, Colbert Foundation, etc.).

He is an affiliated professor at the China Europe International Business School CEIBS (Shanghai) and at HEC (Paris). Pascal has Chaired the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, which published the “Now for the Long Term” report. The product of a year long process of research and debate undertaken by a group of eminent global leaders, it identifies the key megatrends that will shape the 21st century, the challenges they present to future generations, and suggests measures that we can take to meet these challenges.

From 2005 to 2013, Pascal Lamy served two consecutive terms as Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He was previously Trade Commissioner (1999-2004), Director General of Crédit Lyonnais (1994-1999), Chief of Staff of the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors and his G7 Sherpa (1985-1994), Deputy Chief of Staff of the French Prime Minister (1983-1985) and to the French Minister of the Economy and Finance (1981-1983).

He published “The Geneva Consensus: Making Trade Work For All” (Cambridge University Press, 2013), which highlights the vital role that free trade and open markets play in generating global economic growth, itself a key condition for reducing poverty and creating jobs around the world.

In 2020, he published Strange New World: Geoeconomics vs Geopolitics.