Joan Ruddock

Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, is a British economist and academic. He was the Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 2000 to 2003, and was recently a civil servant and government economic advisor in the United Kingdom.

After working for the World Bank, Stern was recruited by Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, to work for the British government where, in 2003, he became second permanent secretary at H.M. Treasury, initially with responsibility for public finances, and head of the Government Economic Service. In July 2005, he was appointed to conduct reviews on the economics of climate change, which led to the publication of the Stern Review.

In June, 2007 Stern became the first holder of the I. G. Patel Chair at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and head of the newly created India Observatory within the Asia Research Centre. In 2008, he was also appointed Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, a major new research centre also at LSE.