Deborah Elms

Deborah Elms is Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore and serves on the board of the Trade and Investment Negotiation Adviser (TINA) at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). Elms has extensive experience working with governments, international organisations, and businesses and is one of the leading experts on trade policy in the region.

Prior to her current role, she was Head of the Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade and Negotiations and Senior Fellow of International Political Economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Elms has held key leadership roles in international trade organisations, including serving on the Trade and Investment Council of the World Economic Forum (2017 – 2019), the International Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA), as well as being the chair of its Working Group on Trade Policy and Law.

Elms holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Washington, an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California, and bachelor’s degrees from Boston University. She is a frequent media commentator on regional trade issues and publishes the widely followed Talking Trade blog.