Anthony Gooch

With 30 years of experience, Anthony Gooch is a seasoned actor on the international stage.

He recently completed 15 years as a Director at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), enhancing its impact & effectiveness, its standards, policies & recommendations bolstering its standing & reputation by developing & implementing strategies across all priority policy areas  to respond to a period of successive crises. Beginning with the Global Financial Crisis and recovery efforts this included OECD’s efforts to reform international tax standards to establish fairer tax systems to close down tax havens  & ensure multinational companies pay their fair share of tax in the context of the digital economy (BEPS). To put wellbeing at the centre of policymaking, he conceived the award-winning OECD Better Life Index  to put citizens at the heart of efforts to improve the well-being and quality of life.  He worked to promote OECD  Education standards (PISA), work on Climate Change, the Digital Transformation & Artificial Intelligence & provided leadership in response to the Pandemic & the War in Ukraine , developing the OECD COVID Hub & transforming the OECD Economic Outlook. Identifying the  challenge posed by “Post-Truth”, he led efforts to proposed concrete actions for OECD to counter mis and disinformation.

He created up the OECD Global Parliamentary Network, to engage key legislators worldwide, building an influential membership with important contributions on global tax reform & artificial intelligence & a strategic partnership with the European Parliament. As Director of the OECD Forum & OECD Forum Network community, he led efforts to engage stakeholders in public policy, attracting leading voices from all sectors to advance the international policy agenda from governments, legislatures, business, trade unions, civil society, foundations and organisations representing women & youth, setting up OECD’s first youth advisory body “YouthWise”.

Prior to OECD, Mr. Gooch, an EU Commission official, spent 13 years representing the European Union as an international trade negotiator & diplomat, co-ordinating the EU/Mexico FTA negotiations and later as the EU’s Trade Spokesman & special adviser to the EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.  His experience included negotiations at WTO  Ministerial Meetings in Seattle in 1999 & Doha in 2001 to launch the Doha Trade Round & complete China’s Accession to WTO  , the  EU Everything But Arms Initiative & the provision of  Access to Medicines for world’s poorest countries resulting in WTO Doha Public Health Declaration. He also managed high profile trade disputes including Boeing/Airbus & US steel tariffs. He was then posted to represented the European Union in its Embassies in the US in Washington DC  and UK in London. He was also an EU Visiting Fellow at USC & UCLA.

He has is a graduate of the IESE Business School Advanced Management Programme has a Postgraduate degree in Political Science & International Relations from the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris & an MA in Modern History from Cambridge University.