Sir Paul Collier

A Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Sir Paul Collier CBE is a British development economist, award-winning author and expert speaker that has advised and provided research to some of the biggest organisations in the world. Currently the Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College, Paul also was Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank for five years. Furthermore, Paul is a Professor invité at Sciences Po and a Director of the International Growth Centre.

Paul spent a number of years researching into the causes and consequences of civil war, urbanisation in low-income countries, private investment in African infrastructure and changing organisational cultures. Thus providing him with a plethora of experience and expert knowledge that business and individuals alike can learn from. Professor Paul Collier is well accomplished in a number of fields. For example, Paul has an extensive repertoire of written work, including various scholarly articles, books and newspaper articles, writing for international media including The New York Times, The Washington Post The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.

One of his most recent books, The Bottom Billion, won the 2008 Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross and Corine prizes, and further went onto become joint winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book prize. An incredibly experienced and acclaimed individual, Paul has been awarded numerous titles and honours for his work. In 2014, Paul was awarded the prestigious President's Medal by the British Academy, as a result of his pioneering contributions and bringing new ideas from research into policy within the field of African economics.

He was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. Not only that, but Paul was knighted in the 2014 New Years Honours for his services to promoting research and policy change in Africa. As an expert in his field, Paul is a popular choice for a manner of different corporate events, conferences and functions. Most notably, he has presented a number of talks at the prestigious TEDx, discussing topics such as ‘The Bottom Billion’ based on his award-winning book, international and national economic landscape, environmental politics, what can be done to rebuild a broken nation and the impact of social science on economy and culture.