Raphael L'Hoest is Deputy Director General for Competition and Structural Policy in the Directorate General for Economic Policy of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin. He is an economist and holds a PhD from the University of Cologne, which he gained after research fellowships at Harvard and Cornell University, as well as a Master in Political Science from George Washington University. He entered public office in 1998 and has held multiple senior positions in economic, structural and financial policy that included service at the German embassies in Washington, D.C. and Bangkok, the Federal Chancellery in Berlin as well as the preparation of G8 summits. He is also currently a member of the Supervisory Board of the German Federal Financial Services Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the Deutsche Bahn Netz AG. He is also a member of the Board of trustees of the FIW (a German research institute focusing on competition issues) and is Mercator Science-Policy Fellow at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt a.M and the Atlantik-Brücke. His recent publications cover various themes in the area of structural and competition policies.