Mario Pezzini is Director of the OECD Development Centre. Moreover, after having served for a year as Acting Director of the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, he has been nominated Special Advisor to the OECD Secretary-General on Development. Before that, he held several senior management positions in the OECD, where he has been working since 1995. Prior to joining the OECD, he was Professor in Industrial Economics at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris as well as in US and Italian Universities. He also served as an Advisor in the field of economic development, industrial organisation and regional economics in international organisations and think tanks (e.g. ILO, UNIDO, European Commission and Nomisma in Italy). He started his career in the Government office of the Emilia-Romagna Region.