Dr. Sungsup Ra

Sungsup Ra is a Visiting Professor of Practice at the Korea Development Institute (KDI) School of Public Policy and Management and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He also advises or serves on the boards of institutions such as the International Financing Facility for Education and the International Centre for Industrial Transformation.
Before joining KDI School in 2024, he was Deputy Director General and Deputy Group Chief of the Sectors Group at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), where he led strategies, innovation, and sovereign operations across agriculture, education, energy, finance, governance, health, transport, urban development, and water. He spearheaded initiatives on climate financing, energy transition, food security, COVID-19 response, the learning crisis, and the rollout of ADB’s new operating model, and he oversaw 29 trust funds.
With 35 years of experience, including 23 at ADB, he served as Chief Sector Officer for Sustainable Development and Climate Change, Director of South Asia Human and Social Development, and Director of Pacific Operations. Earlier, he worked at Samsung and Korea’s National Pension Service and taught at universities in Tokyo, Seoul, and Illinois. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.