ABILITY
TO CHANGE
SUSTAINABLE CITY AND LIVING
GCD’s organizational structure comprises of four different types of professionals whose specialization, experience, and background will combine to realize our missions.
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ROBIN J. LEWIS
Senior Advisor and Executive Board Member, is a noted expert in global public policy who brings a lifetime of academic and consulting experience to the project. He served as Associate Dean of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) from 1985 to 2007 and mentored several thousand future policy leaders from over one hundred countries during his tenure. He also was the first Executive Director of the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN), an innovative partnership between top graduate programs in New York, London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sao Paulo. He has consulted for governments in over a dozen countries, with major multi-year assignments in China, Vietnam, and Russia. Dr. Lewis has also been a consultant for the World Bank, Ford Foundation, US Department of State, and the Open Society Institute. He was Executive Editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Asian History, published by the Asia Society and Macmillan in 1977 and is currently the first President of the International Development and Public Policy Alliance (IDPPA), a consortium of graduate public policy schools in the “BRICS Plus” countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, and Malaysia). He holds MA and PhD degrees from Columbia University.
ITO TAKATOSHI
Professor, School of International and Public Affairs, and Associate Director, Research at the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia University, has taught extensively both in the United States and Japan since finishing his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University in 1979. He taught as Assistant and tenured Associate Professor (1979-88) at the University of Minnesota, as Associate and full Professor at Hitotsubashi University (1988-2002), as Professor at the Graduate School of Economics at University of Tokyo (2004-2014) before assuming his current position in 2014. He held visiting professor positions at Harvard University, Stanford University, and Columbia Business School, and was Tun Ismail Ali Chair Professor at University of Malaya. He has distinguished academic and research appointments such as President of the Japanese Economic Association in 2004; Fellow of the Econometric Society, since 1992; Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1985; and Faculty Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, since 2006. He was Editor-in-Chief of Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, and is Co-Editor of Asian Economic Policy Review. In an unusual move for a Japanese academic, Ito was also appointed in the official sectors, as Senior Advisor in the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund (1994-97) and as Deputy Vice Minister for International Affairs at the Ministry of Finance of Japan (1999-2001). He served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (2006-2008). In 2010, he was a co-author of a commissioned study of the Bank of Thailand’s 10th-year review of its inflation targeting regime. He frequently contributes op-ed columns and articles to the Financial Times and Nihon Keizai Shinbun. He is an author of many books including The Japanese Economy (MIT Press, 1992), The Political Economy of the Japanese Monetary Policy (1997) and Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan (2000) (both with T. Cargill and M. Hutchison, MIT Press), An Independent and Accountable IMF (with J. De Gregorio, B. Eichengreen, and C. Wyplosz, 1999), and more than 130 academic (refereed) journal articles, including Econometrica, American Economic Review, and Journal of Monetary Economics, and chapters in books on international finance, monetary policy, and the Japanese economy. His research interests include capital flows and currency crises, microstructures of the foreign exchange rates, and inflation targeting. He was awarded the National Medal with Purple Ribbon in June 2011 for his excellent academic achievement.
TONGTHONG CHANDRANSU
Ex-Permanent Secretary of the Thai Cabinet Office, is a distinguished government leader in Thailand who has served in many high positions in various governments. He is currently a Member of the Council of State, and has previously held appointments as Advisor to the Office of the Prime Minister, Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Secretary-General of the Office of the Education Council, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, and as Member and Spokesman (2007) and Member (1997) of the Constitution Drafting Committee.
He has also held important positions in business and academia: he has been Director of the Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited, Director of the Government Housing Bank, and Dean of the Faculty of Law of Chulalongkorn University.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from Chulalongkorn University and Master of Laws degrees from New York University and Chulalongkorn University. He is a Barrister-at-Law certified by the Thai Bar Association and is currently on the governing councils of three universities: Chulalongkorn University (where he is Vice President of the Council), Maha Makut Rajvidhayalai University, and Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University.
He also serves as Chairman of the Executive Board of the Museum of the King Prajadhipok Institute and is Advisor to the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, a public organization.