Chris Southworth is Secretary General at the International Chamber of Commerce and a regular voice for business in the international media. He is also Director of the Secretariat for the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trade and Export Promotion, the founder of the ICC Digital Trade Roadmap, Co-Chair of The Commonwealth Business to Business trade policy forum and a member of the ICC G7, G20, Digitisation and Ecommerce Working Groups. He is a member of the ICC World Council as well as the International Advisory Boards of the Digital Trade Network and Queen Mary-UNIDROIT Institute of Transnational Commercial Law and Open Borders Direct.
Prior to joining ICC, he was Executive Director for Global Partnerships, at the British Chambers of Commerce, Head of the International Chambers of Commerce Unit at UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and a Senior Policy Advisor to Lord Heseltine for his independent review of UK competitiveness. In 2011 he was advisor to the Minister for Trade and Investment for the government review of mid-size businesses and consequent establishment of the mid-size business export programme. Former roles have encompassed deregulatory and social enterprise policy at the Department for Business.