Sungsup Ra
Chief Sector Officer
Office of the Cluster Head, Sector Advisory Service Cluster (SDSC)
Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department (SDCC)
Asian Development Bank

Current responsibility:
As the Chief Sector Officer, he leads the planning, implementation, and supervision of the Sector Advisory Service Cluster’s (SDSC) vision, goals, and work plan.

The Office of the Cluster Head—which oversees the sector groups (SGs) of education, energy, finance, health, transport, urban development, and water—provides support on (i) administrative requirements of SGs, (ii) coordination among SGs and with Thematic Groups on cross-sector/thematic issues, (iii) maintaining consistency across SGs operations, (iv) financial resource mobilization for SGs, (v) external and internal relations, and (vi) global/regional knowledge platform.

Experience and accomplishments:
He joined ADB in 2001 as Economist. Since then, he worked in both Bangladesh and Nepal Resident Missions as Deputy Country Director, Senior Advisor to the Managing Director General, and Director for Pacific Operations Division. Before joining SDCC, he led the establishment and became Director of South Asia Human and Social Development Division, wherein he managed a portfolio of $7 billion. He was also Chair of the Education Sector Group.

As a strategic and innovative leader, he has led high-level policy dialogue with developing countries and significantly contributed to ADB’s recent expansion in the social sector. Prior to joining ADB, he worked with Samsung and Korean National Pension, and taught economics at leading universities—Korea University and International Christian University, Japan.

Nationality and Education:
A national of the Republic of Korea, he holds a Doctorate and Master’s degrees in Economics from the University of Illinois, United States, and Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Korea University.