Caroline Freund is Director of Trade, Regional Integration and Investment Climate. Previously she was a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.  She has also worked as Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank, after working for nearly a decade in the international trade unit of the research department.  Freund began her career in the international finance division of the Federal Reserve Board and spent a year visiting the research department of the IMF.  She has published extensively in academic journals and is the author of Rich People Poor Countries: The Rise of Emerging Market Tycoons and their Mega Firms.  She is a US national and received a PhD in economics from Columbia University.