Ron Keller

About Ron Keller

Ron Keller is an experienced expert on geopolitics, international relations and international financial and economic issues.

Between 2005 and 2017 he was Dutch Ambassador to Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and China. Previously, he was Director at the Eastern Europe Bank (EBRD) and top advisor to the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and to the Dutch Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs.

Ron is a frequent speaker and chairman at national and international meetings and conferences. He combines his broad and longstanding financial-economic knowledge and experience with those of foreign policy and international relations. This unique combination helps to see complex international issues in context, makes cross-connections visible and enables, based on cultural-historical awareness, to explore future developments.

Ron is currently Ambassador of the European Senate for Economics and Technology and advisor to various international companies and institutions, such as the G20, the European Technology Chamber, the Centre for Russian Studies, and EuroDefense Netherlands. He is also a (guest) lecturer at, among others, the University of Groningen and Leiden University. He regularly works as a Commentator and Strategic Analyst in Dutch newspapers and for Dutch radio and television.

Prior to his Ambassadorship, Ron served as Director-General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was responsible for the Dutch development cooperation policies between 2000 and 2005.

Previously, he was Director of Foreign Financial Relations and Director of Export Credit Insurance and Investment Guarantees at the Dutch Ministry of Finance (1994-2000). During that period Ron was appointed by the European Union in Brussels as Chairman of the Committee that designed and established the Euro currency system and the European Monetary Union.

Immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of 1989, Ron was (representing the Netherlands) one of the founders of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, after which he was appointed member of the first Board of Directors at that multilateral bank in London (1991-1994).

In the late eighties Ron worked as Personal Assistant to the Dutch Minister of Finance closely together with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC.

Ron holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam (1983, Cum Laude).