Philippe Legrain is a critically acclaimed thinker and communicator. He is the author of Open World: The Truth About Globalisation (2002); Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them (2007), which was shortlisted for the 2007 Financial Times Business Book of the Year; and Aftershock: Reshaping the World Economy After the Crisis (2010), which the Sunday Times described as “a blueprint for a new economic world order”.

In February 2011, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso appointed him as a principal adviser and director of the analysis team at the Bureau of European Policy Advisers. Before that, he was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, a contributing editor at Prospect and a commentator for publications such as the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Times, as well as for BBC and international TV and radio. He blogs on Facebook and tweets as @plegrain. In 1999, he was highly commended as Young Financial Journalist of the Year in the Harold Wincott Press Awards. Previously trade and economics correspondent for The Economist and special adviser to World Trade Organisation director-general Mike Moore, he has a first-class honours degree in economics and a master’s in politics of the world economy, both from LSE.