Robert Skidelsky was born in 1939 in Harbin, China. He is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, the author of The World After Communism (1995) and the internationally acclaimed biographer of the economist John Maynard Keynes, which won 5 prizes including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council of Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 1991 and served as Chief Opposition Spokesman on Treasury Affairs (1998-1999). From 1991 to 2001 he was Chairman of the Social Market Foundation. Since 2002 he has been Chairman of the Centre for Global Studies. Robert Skidelsky is also a non-executive director of the american mutual fund, Janus Capital, and the Russian telecoms giant, Sistema.