Inside the Reagan White House with Frank Lavin

Frank Lavin served as under secretary for international trade at the US Department of Commerce in the George H. W. Bush administration. In that capacity, Lavin served as lead trade negotiator for both China and India and was responsible for commercial policy, export promotion, and trade negotiations across the globe. Lavin was previously US ambassador to Singapore, where he helped negotiate the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.

In the private sector, Lavin served in senior finance and management positions in Hong Kong and Singapore with Edelman, Bank of America, and Citibank.

Lavin also served in the George W. Bush and Reagan administrations, working in the Department of Commerce, Department of State, National Security Council, and White House.

Lavin earned a BS from the School of Foreign Service; an MS in Chinese language and history from Georgetown University; an MA in international relations and international economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.

He is a columnist for Forbes.com and has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media outlets.

Lavin is the author of The Smart Business Guide to China E-Commerce (Penguin), coauthor of Export Now (Wiley) on market entry strategies, and author of Home Front to Battlefront (Ohio University Press), a World War II history book.

Lavin serves as a trustee of the Asia Foundation and a director of the Asia Society of Northern California. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Advanced MedTech Holdings, a medical technologies company. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Advisory Board of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels think tank. Lavin served as a lieutenant commander in the US Naval Reserves.