Adnan Khan

Professor Adnan Khan is the Chief Economist and Director for Economics and Evaluation Directorate in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). He is seconded from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he is Professor in the School of Public Policy.

Adnan has focused his career on advancing the understanding of development economics, political economy, entrepreneurship, and public sector reform. He has taught courses at the London School of Economics on development economics, public organisations, and political economy. He has taught at Harvard Kennedy School and has also been an Academic Director at the School of Public Policy.

Adnan has used real-time, cutting-edge analytical work that feeds directly into policy. He has also applied frontier research on real-world questions conducted through collaboration with policy partners to achieve policy and academic impact.

Adnan co-chaired LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development. He continued to work on the theme of fragile states through the follow-up Reducing Fragilities Initiative. He has published in journals on issues such as promoting value-for-money in public procurement, building state capacity by motivating civil servants to perform better, and on promoting entrepreneurship and social protection.

Adnan served as Research and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre (IGC) at the LSE. He led research and policy initiatives aimed at promoting economic growth through policymaker-researcher collaboration and by generating ideas based on frontier research on important drivers of economic growth.

Adnan has spent more than a decade in policy roles in different capacities and in various government departments. He originally trained as an engineer but moved to public policy and economics, studying at Harvard Kennedy School and Queen’s University.