Mr. Mai Lu earned his B.A. in economics from Beijing College of Economics in 1982, and his M.A. in public administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1991. He was a distinguished visiting scholar at MIT in 1999, and a Lulu Chow Wang Senior Visiting Scholar at Columbia Business School in 2010. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Lu served at the Development Research Center of the State Council of China (DRC) as senior research fellow, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Department, etc.. Previously, he was a senior research fellow in China Business Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 1993 to 1995. In 1991-1993, he served as research associate at Harvard Institute for International Development and the Department of Government of Harvard University. Mr. Lu started his career in the Research Center for Rural Development of the State Council of China in the late 1980s, where he assumed a number of positions including the director of Experimental Area Office for Rural Reform, and played a significant role in China’s rural reform. Besides his position in CDRF, Mr. Lu Mai is also an executive director of China Public Finance Society and a member of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Leadership Council. He served in the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation of the International Labour Office from 2002 to 2004. Under his leadership, CDRF completed China Human Development Report 2005 in the year of 2005, which received UNDP’s 2007 Human Development Award for Excellence in Policy Analysis and Influence. In 2011, LGOPAD Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (of the State Council) named Mr. Lu as one of the “National Pioneers in Poverty Alleviation and Development”.