Simon Maxwell is executive chair of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network. He spent 10 years overseas with U.N. Development Program and the United Kingdom aid program, in Kenya, India and Bolivia, and then 15 years at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He was director of the Overseas Development Institute. In addition to CDKN, he is chair of the European Think Tanks Group and specialist adviser to the International Development Select Committee in the U.K. Parliament. Simon Maxwell is a former president of the Development Studies Association of the U.K. and Ireland. In 2007, he was awarded a CBE for services to international development.