A United Nations specialist in international trade issues, Dr Lanvin has been responsible for research, analyses and negotiations related to technology and trade. He has focused in particular on the relationship between information technologies, telecommunications, and international trade in services. As World Coordinator of the Trade Point Programme, he oversees the development of the world’s largest Internet site for pre-transactional trade information (GTPNet). Under his chairmanship, the membership of ISOC’s Geneva Chapter grew from 50 to 490.

A doctor in Economics (Troisième Cycle, La Sorbonne, Paris - France) and master in business administration (HEC, Paris-France), Bruno Lanvin is currently in charge of managing the events and exhibition of the first meeting of ‘Partners for Development’ devoted to electronic commerce (Global Electronic Trade UN Partnership, Lyon November 1998), for which he is working particularly closely with private enterprises involved in telecommunications, the Internet and electronic commerce.

His mother tongue is French. He is fluent in Spanish and English, and has a basic working knowledge of Russian. He is married to Anne Miroux and has four children.

Carrier record

After working as an economist for the Services of the French Prime Minister (1978-79), Mr Lanvin was recruited by the United Nations where he was successively the Special Assistant to the Director General in New-York (1981-1983), and to the Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD in Geneva (1984-1990). Since 1983, he was one of the UNCTAD economists in charge of studies on the Services sector, and specialized on information-intensive services, including telecommunications (see bibliography below). In 1990, he was appointed by the OECD as rapporteur of the concluding meeting of the 'Technology and the Economy' Programme. In 1991, he became responsible for the strategic planning activities of the newly created Special Programme for Trade Efficiency. Following the decision made by the General Assembly of the United Nations to convene the International Symposium on Trade Efficiency (UNISTE), he was appointed Deputy Executive-Secretary of UNISTE (1993), a position which he still holds.

He is currently the world coordinator of the Trade Point Programme, through which the United Nations is establishing the Global Trade Point Network (GTPNet), which includes over 100 ‘telecenters’ in all regions of the world. A core purpose of GTPNet is to allow traders and investors worldwide to benefit from recent advances in the area of information technologies and telecommunications. One of Dr Lanvin’s responsibilities in this context is to keep abreast of the latest developments in the fields of the telecommunications industry, especially as they relate to the Internet and its uses for economic and social development.

Other relevant recent activities

In 1995, Dr Lanvin was invited by the Secretary-General of the ITU to serve as a member of the advisory committee of the Strategies Forum of Telecom’95. In that capacity, he chaired the Forum’s Session devoted to ‘Social issues’. Also at Telecom’95, he chaired the final session of the ‘Internet@Telecom’ Forum. In late 1995, he was invited by the Secretary-General of the ITU to serve as a member of the Advisory Committee of Telecom Americas, held in Rio de Janeiro from 11 to 15 June 1996.

In August 1995, Dr Lanvin became the president of the Geneva Chapter of the Internet Society. He was re-elected in January 1996. Dr Lanvin has been a member of the INET’96 and INET’97 Committees, co-chairing the ‘expansion’ and ‘regional development’ tracks, respectively.

In early 1996, he became the UNCTAD staff member responsible for the substantive and logistical preparations of the First National Event on Trade Efficiency organized in South Africa in parallel with UNCTAD IX (27 April-11 May 1996), and the resource person for UNCTAD’s participation in the ISAD (Information Society and Development) Conference held in South Africa under the auspices of the G7 (13-15 May 1996).

In late 1996, he was designated by the Secretary-General of the ITU as Chairman of the Forum for Telecom Interactive (to be held in Geneva 8-14 September 1997), and a member of the Telecom Asia Preparatory Committee (Singapore, June 1997). In December 1996, he served as a member of ITU’s Regulatory Colloquium. In April 1997, he chaired the gTLD-MOU meeting hosted by the ITU, which officially launched a new worldwide effort for ‘voluntary multilateralism’ in the area of Internet domain names.

Since September 1996, Dr Lanvin has been the head of the newly-created UNCTAD unit for SME trade competitiveness, which is in particular responsible for the ‘GII and development’ programme. His main area of responsibilities is Electronic Commerce.

Academic qualifications, publications

Bruno Lanvin holds a PhD (Doctorat de Troisième Cycle) in Economics from the University of Paris I, Panthéon-La Sorbonne (1980), an MBA from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC, Paris, Promotion 1977), and a BA (MP1) in Mathematics and Physics (University of Valenciennes, 1972). He has taught international economics and information technology management in several American and European universities (Long Island University in New-York, Webster University MBA Programme in Geneva, i.a.). He has been a regular lecturer on telecommunication issues at the Institut National des Télécommunications (INT) as well as at the CERAM (Mastère Réseaux), in France, and Michigan State University (Telecom European Programme). A frequent invited speaker in international meetings he has addressed telecom issues in a wide number of fora such as IDATE (Institut Européen pour l’Audiovisuel et les Télécommunications, Montpellier, France) since 1987, Networked Economy Meetings since 1993, or the Strategy Forums of the ITU Telecom events, since 1994.

Dr Lanvin is the author of numerous publications on information technology and international trade (see below), including 'Global Trade ' (IDATE, Paris, 1989), and 'Trading in a New World Order' (Westview, Boulder, 1993). He contributed to ‘Trading Telecommunications - A Contribution to a European Doctrine’ (IDATE, 1992), and, most recently, to ‘The New Information Infrastructure’ (W. Drake ed., Twentieth Century Fund, New-York, June 1995). He has been a member of the scientific committee of ‘Communications & Strategies’ since its creation in 1990.

Publications on telecommunications, information technology, trade and services

Lanvin, Bruno (1986a) La société d'information en suspens, Futuribles, Oct-Nov, Paris.

Lanvin, Bruno (1986b) Réseaux et compétitivité, Bulletin de l'IDATE No 25, IDATE, Montpellier.

Lanvin, Bruno (1987a) International Trade in Services, Information Services, and Development: Some Issues, UNCTAD Discussion Paper No 23, UNCTAD, Geneva.

Lanvin, Bruno (1987b) Information Technology and Competitiveness in the Service Industry, Bulletin de l'IRES No 119, Université Catholique de Louvain.

Lanvin, Bruno (1988a) Information, commerce international des services et développement, in O. Giarini & J.R. Roullet ed.,L'Europe face à la nouvelle économie de service, PUF, Paris.

Lanvin, Bruno (1988b) Les services avancés, infrastructure du développement, Mondes en Développement No 60, Janvier-Mars, Paris.

Lanvin, Bruno (1988c) Services intermédiaires et développement, in Le dynamisme des services aux entreprises, Special Issue of Revue d'Economie Industrielle, Paris.

Lanvin, Bruno (1989a) Information, Services, and Development: some conceptual and analytical issues, in Albert Bressand and Kalypso Nicolaïdis ed., Strategic Trends in Services, an inquiry into the Global Service Economy, Services World Forum, Harper & Row, Ballinger Division, New-York..

Lanvin, Bruno (1989b) Participation of Developing Countries in a Telecommunication and Data Services Agreement: some elements for consideration, in Peter Robinson, Karl P. Sauvant and Vishwas P. Govitrikar ed., Electronic Highways for World Trade, issues in Telecommunication and Data Services, ATWATER Series on the World Information Economy, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.

Lanvin, Bruno ed. (1989c), Global Trade: the Revolution beyond the Information Revolution, IDATE, Montpellier/Paris.

Lanvin, Bruno (1991), Services and new industrial strategies: what is at stake for developing countries?, in Peter W. Daniels and Frank Moulaert eds, The Changing Geography of Advanced Producer Services, Belhaven Press, London.

Lanvin, Bruno ed. (1993), Trading in a New World Order, No 3 in the Atwater Series on the Informaton Economy, Westview, Boulder (Colorado).

Lanvin, Bruno (1994, a), Trade Efficiency and Global Information Highways, New Trader, No 24 (Winter 94), World Trade Center Magazine, Geneva.

Lanvin Bruno (1994, b) Télémédiations et relations économiques internationales. Plaidoyer pour une triangulation du commerce global, La Lettre du Manager, (December), ENSPTT, Paris.

Lanvin, Bruno (1995, a), The UN at the Vanguard: Internet, Trade and Development, UN Special, No 529 (April),

Lanvin, Bruno (1995, b), Trade, Development and the Global Information Infrastructure: an African Challenge, paper presented at the African Regional Symposium on Telematics and Development (Addis-Ababa, April 1995), UNECA, E/ECA/ARSTM/48.

Lanvin, Bruno (1995, c), Why the Global Village Cannot Afford Information Slums, in William J. Drake ed., The New Information Infrastructure, Twentieth Century Fund, New-York.

Lanvin, Bruno (1995, d), Contributed the chapter on ‘The Geopolitics of Infopower’, in G.L. Franco ed., World Communications, Le Monde Economique, Paris and London.

Lanvin, Bruno (1996), Giving GII a Development Dimension, in Cattell-Lanvin-Vellucci ed., The Global Trade Point Network, WTC Geneva.

Lanvin, Bruno (1997), L’Afrique qui gagne, http://www.unicc.org/untpdc/library/te.

Lanvin, Bruno (1998), Telecommunications and development: Who will benefit from the GII, ITJ, London, to be published.

Lanvin, Bruno (1998), Le commerce électronique, Publisud, Paris, to be published.

Plus numerous interviews for newspapers, journals, radio and TV stations.

Teaching experience

Dr Lanvin has taught international economics, management information systems,business management, communications skills and advanced mathematics in several European and American universities. He is a regular lecturer at major universities on issues related to international business, telecommunications and electronic commerce.

Other information

Holder of several records in track and field (100m, 200m and 4x100m, 1970-72), and former coach and captain of the ‘Europe’ soccer team of the UN league in New-York (1981-83), Dr Lanvin was born in 1954.