Ambassador Frank Lavin is a Trustee of The Asia Foundation. He is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California, where he teaches a seminar on statecraft.
Lavin served as the Commerce Department’s undersecretary for international trade from 2005 to 2007, leading trade negotiations with China and India. He was the ambassador to Singapore from 2001 to 2005, playing a key role in negotiating the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. His earlier government service included senior roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. In the private sector, Lavin held finance and management positions in Hong Kong and Singapore with Bank of America and Citibank.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, master’s degrees in Chinese Language and history from Georgetown, and a master’s degree in international relations from SAIS (Johns Hopkins University), Johns Hopkins University, along with an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School. His latest book is Inside the Reagan White House, and he is a columnist for Forbes magazine.