Dr. David Graddol is well known as a writer, broadcaster, presenter and consultant on issues related to global English and educational trends. Dr. Graddol is Director of The English Company (UK) and was until 2013 joint editor of the Cambridge University Press journal English Today. He is on the editorial boards of several other journals, including Language Problems and Language Planning, and Visual Communication.

His many publications include several important research and policy documents commissioned by the British Council. The Future of English? (1997) set out a new agenda for understanding the growing importance of English as an international language and its role in globalization. English Next (2006), provided an update on English in global education and this was followed by English Next India (2010), which explores the changing status of English in India and its role in India’s economic development. He is currently working on English Next Brazil which will be published in March 2014. His most recent book, for Cambridge English, Profiling English in China: The Pearl River Delta was published in summer 2013. Dr. Graddol previously worked for 25 years in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the UK Open University and was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at City University of Hong Kong. He has a PhD from the University of Stockholm and has worked as a consultant on ELT projects in China, India and Latin America since the early 1990s.