About Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd served two terms as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister (2007-10, 2013) and also as Foreign Minister (2010-12) and Ambassador of Australia to the United States (2023-26). He is currently the global President and CEO of the Asia Society, a renowned international relations and cultural institution headquartered in New York.

Kevin is recognised as a leading analyst of China. He served as inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York from 2015 prior to being appointed to lead the entire Asia Society in 2020. In 2022, he founded the Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

He is the author of numerous books, most recently On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World, which is based on his Oxford University doctoral thesis. His books have been translated into foreign languages including Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Portuguese.

He holds honorary positions at the Asia Society; Atlantic Council; Bloomberg New Economy Forum; Center for Strategic and International Studies; Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation; Chatham House; Friends of the Paris Agreement; Museum of Australian Democracy; Paulson Institute; Paris School of International Affairs; and Stephen A. Schwartzman Education Foundation. He is co-chair of an Australian charity, the National Apology Foundation, and a trustee of the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City.

In Government

As Prime Minister, he led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis, reviewed by the IMF as the most effective stimulus strategy of all member states. Australia was the only major developed economy not to go into recession. Mr. Rudd co‑founded the G20 to drive the global response to the crisis, which in 2009 helped prevent the crisis from spiraling into depression.

As Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr. Rudd was active in global and regional foreign policy leadership. He was a driving force in expanding the East Asia Summit to include both the U.S. and Russia in 2010, and launched the long-term concept of transforming the EAS into a wider Asia Pacific Community. On climate change, Mr. Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 and legislated in 2008 for a 20 percent mandatory renewable energy target for Australia. He represented Australia at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit which produced the Copenhagen Accord, for the first time committing states to not allow temperature increases beyond two degrees. He was appointed a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability and is a co-author of the report Resilient People, Resilient Planet for the 2012 Rio+20 Conference. This report was the first to recommend the negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Mr. Rudd drove Australia’s successful bid for its non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2012-2014. His government also saw the near doubling of Australia’s foreign aid budget to approximately $5 billion, making Australia then one of the top ten aid donors in the world. He also appointed Australia’s first ever Ambassador for Women and Girls to support the critical role of women in development and reduce physical and sexual violence against women.

Domestically, Mr. Rudd delivered Australia’s formal national apology to indigenous Australians. In education, his government introduced Australia’s first-ever nationwide school curriculum, undertook the biggest-ever capital investment program in Australian schools with the building of thousands of new state of the art libraries across the country, as well as introducing the first-ever mandatory national assessment system of literacy and numeracy standards. In health, Mr. Rudd in 2010 negotiated with the Australian states a National Health and Hospitals Reform Agreement, the biggest reform and investment in the health system since the introduction of Medicare 30 years before. His government established a national network of leading-edge cancer care centers across Australia, before introducing the world’s first ever plain-packaging regime for all tobacco products. To improve the rate of organ and tissue donation, he established Australia’s first National Organ and Tissue Transplant Authority. In 2010, his government introduced Australia’s first-ever paid parental leave scheme and implemented the biggest increase in, and reform of, the age pension since federation. He also founded the National Broadband Network to deliver high-speed broadband for every household, business, school, hospital, and GP in the country.

In 2019, Kevin was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for eminent service to Indigenous reconciliation, innovative economic initiatives, and major policy reform, and through senior advisory roles with international organisations.

Earlier career

Kevin started his diplomatic career in 1981 with postings to Beijing and Stockholm. In 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Hon. Wayne Goss and served him as Premier of Queensland. He was Director-General of the Cabinet Office from 1991 to 1995, and Senior China Consultant for KPMG from 1996 to 1998. He served in the Australian House of Representatives as the Member for Griffith between 1998 and 2013. He graduated with Honours in Asian Studies from the Australian National University and received his PhD from Oxford University in 2022. He also studied at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. He is the author of a two-volume autobiography, Not for the Faint-Hearted and The PM Years.

Kevin and his wife Thérèse Rein are the proud parents of three and grandparents of three.