Thant Myint-U

Former head of policy planning, UN's Department of Political Affairs

Educated at Harvard and Cambridge, Thant Myint-U was a fellow of Trinity College Cambridge from 1995 to 1999. He has served on United Nations peacekeeping operations in Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia, and was more recently the head of policy planning in the UN’s Department of Political Affairs.

He is the author of the acclaimed history of Burma The River of Lost Footsteps (2008) which draws on his family history (he is the grandson of Thant-U, the former UN Secretary General) and his own hands-on political experience to explain Burma’s present predicament and suggest a strategy for the future.