Maarten Smeets managed the Academic Outreach and WTO Chairs Program (WCP) at the WTO, working with leading scholars and academics from universities and think tanks around the world. He also headed a section at the Institute for Training and Technical Co-operation (ITTC), coordinating field-based trade capacity building programs. He holds a PhD from the Faculty of Law at Maastricht University, a master's degree in economics, finance and international trade from Tilburg University, a diploma from the Graduate Institute (Geneva) and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA-Paris). He is a senior associate at the Clingendael Academy (Den Haag), a non resident fellow at the World Trade Institute (Bern), an associate professor at Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (SUIBE) and St Petersburg State University, guest professor at the UIBE (Peking), a fellow of the Institute for Globalization and International Regulation (IGIR, Maastricht University) and a fellow from the Salzburg Seminar (Austria). He has published many articles in leading journals and (co-)edited books on current trade issues (digital trade, inclusive growth, globalization, sanctions, WTO accession, structural reforms, developing countries).He is/was on the board of several institutions, including the IMF led Joint Vienna Institute (JVI). Before joining the WTO, he worked at the OECD and the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Den Haag).