Craig Emerson is an eminent economist, and holds a doctorate from the Australian National University. He was economic and environmental adviser to prime minister Bob Hawke, and a minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, where he held the portfolios of trade, tertiary education, competition policy, small business, and minister assisting the prime minister on Asian Century policy. Before entering parliament, he was director-general of the Queensland environment department, and, at the age of 23, the youngest economic analyst at the United Nations in Bangkok. He has published extensively in economic journals and on newspaper opinion pages, and is now the managing director of his own economic consultancy, Craig Emerson Economics.