Mark Malloch-Brown completes his service as president of the Open Society Foundations, the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights on 1 June 2024.

He has worked to advance human rights, justice, and development for more than four decades in a variety of roles: with the United Nations, the World Bank, and as a British government minister, as well as with a range of civil society groups and business. 

At the United Nations, Malloch-Brown spearheaded the global promotion of the UN Millennium Development Goals as head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 1999 to 2005, under the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. At the UNDP, and previously as vice president of external affairs at the World Bank, Malloch-Brown led reform efforts that were widely seen as increasing the impact of both organisations. 

He later served as Kofi Annan’s chief of staff, and then as UN deputy secretary general, before joining the British government of prime minister Gordon Brown, as minister responsible for Africa and Asia from 2007 to 2009.  

Malloch-Brown rejoined Open Society’s Global Board in 2009, reflecting a close friendship with George Soros that developed in the early 1990s when he was working as a political consultant in Latin America and later over relief efforts in Bosnia. In 1995, Soros backed Malloch-Brown and others’ idea of launching the International Crisis Group, an NGO focussed on preventing and averting violent conflict, in response to the horrors seen in Rwanda, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia.  

More recently, he chaired Best for Britain, a group that makes the case for Britain’s engagement with the European Union, and has among others led the boards of the Royal Africa Society, the UN Foundation, and the Business Commission for Sustainable Development. 

Malloch-Brown was knighted for his contribution to international affairs and is currently on leave from the British House of Lords. Malloch-Brown is a distinguished practitioner at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, an adjunct fellow at Chatham House’s Queen Elizabeth Program, and has been a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. He has a number of honorary degrees. 