The Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Rubens Ricupero, has announced that as of 1 September, Ms. Lynn Krieger Mytelka assumed the position of Director of UNCTAD´s newly created Division on Investment, Enterprise Development and Technology.
Professor Mytelka has worked extensively on problems related to technology capability building, innovation policy and strategies of transnational corporations. She is the first high level appointment from outside the United Nations since Mr. Ricupero took up office last September.
UNCTAD IX called for analytical, policy and operational activities aimed at promoting the contribution of investment and technology to development, and at enhancing the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises. The new Division has been entrusted with this task. Pending the implementation of the new structure of the UNCTAD secretariat, Ms. Mytelka will assume responsibility for the current Division on Transnational Corporations and Investment and Division for Science and Technology.
Prior to taking up her post, Ms. Mytelka has served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme and UNCTAD, as well as to the European Union, the International Development Research Centre (Canada), the OECD and served as Rapporteur for the Textile and Clothing Sub-Committee of the Commissariat Général au Plan in Paris for two years. Until recently, she was Professor in the Institute of Political Economy and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University (Ottawa) and Director of Research at the Centre d´Etudes et de Recherches sur les Entreprises Multinationales (Forum-CEREM) of the Université Paris-X (Nanterre).
She has done extensive research on industrial and technological development in African countries within the context of regional integration schemes. This includes the extent to which the Lome Convention enabled enterprises in these countries to benefit from restructuring in the textile and clothing industries in the European Union. She also undertook research on policies to stimulate technology capacity-building in petrochemical and machinery and machine tool industries in the countries members of the Andean Group as well as on innovation in small, medium-sized and larger transnational corporations in telecommunications, textile and clothing industries in Latin America and in Korea.
Amongst her recent publications are: "South-South Cooperation in a Global Perspective" (Paris: OECD Development Centre, 1994) and "Strategic Partnerships: States, Firms and International Competition" (London: Frances Pinter Publishers, 1991).
Forthcoming publications by Ms. Mytelka include: "Competition, innovation and competitiveness in developing countries" (Paris: OECD Development Centre, 1997) and "Technological capabilities and export success. Case studies from Asia", co-authored with Dieter Ernst and Tom Ganiatsos (London: Routledge, 1997).
Ms. Mytelka is on the boards of the African Technology Policy Studies Network (Nairobi) and the Institut pour le management de la recherche et de l´innovation - IMRI (Paris) as well as a number of professional journals.
Ms. Mytelka, a dual USA/Canada national, is 53 years old. She holds a PhD degree from the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. She is bilingual in English and French and also speaks Spanish.
