Pascal Lamy (France)

Pascal Lamy served as Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for eight years. He has served in the French Parliament and European Commission, and before joining the WTO helped save the bank Crédit Lyonnais.

After being educated in France and Britain, Pascal became a civil servant before becoming an advisor to the French Finance Minister and the Prime Minister. He then joined politics himself before accompanying his former boss Jacques Delors to the European Commission as the President’s Chief of Staff and his representative at the G7.

When historic French bank Crédit Lyonnais faced financial disaster after a series of poor investments and management decisions, Pascal took a break from politics. His tough, no-nonsense style was applied to the restructuring of the bank before preparing it for privatisation. He then returned to the European Commission as Commissioner for Trade for five years.

After a period leading the European policy think tank Notre Europe, Pascal was asked to head the WTO. He led the international trade regulator through a period including on-going work on the Doha Round focused on developing countries, and a time which saw the rise of the so-called BRIC countries, and the global economic crisis. Pascal was unanimously re-elected for a second term as DG and after his eight years in charge returned to Notre Europe.

He has authored several books on global governance, Europe and international trade including The Geneva Consensus: Making Trade Work for All, which discusses the role of free trade between open markets in a growing global economy.

He is currently the President of the Paris Peace Forum and Brunswick Europe Chair. He is also a special advisor to the European Commission.