FORA.tv Speaker - Allan Gyngell

Allan Gyngell, the executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, has a wide background in international policy making and analysis. He has written and spoken extensively on Australian foreign policy, Asian regional relations, and the development of global and regional institutions. After graduating in history and political science from Melbourne University, he served as an Australian diplomat in Rangoon, Singapore and Washington. He also spent a number of years with the Office of National Assessments, Australia's national intelligence analysis organisation, where he worked on southeast Asian issues and headed the branch dealing with great power relations at the end of the Cold War. He was later first assistant secretary in the international division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. From 1993 to 1996, he was foreign policy adviser in the office of the Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating. After leaving government in 1997, he worked as a consultant to a number of Australian companies. In 2003, he was appointed as the founding executive director of the Lowy Institute. He is a member of the Australian Government's Foreign Affairs Council. The second edition of his book, Making Australian Foreign Policy, co-written with Professor Michael Wesley, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007.