David Ludlow's career has spanned both the public and private sectors. After stints in the British Embassy in Moscow at the end of the Gorbachev era, and at the European Commission working on economic restructuring in Eastern Europe, he spent two years working with David Owen at the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia. Finishing his time at the FCO in the mid-1990s on the Russian Desk, he left government service to pursue a career in investment banking, focusing on emerging markets, initially in Central and Eastern Europe and later in the Middle East. Drawing on his experiences in both these career paths, he re-joined the civil service in 2013, heading UK Export Finance's business development activities until the end of 2016, when he left to pursue other interests.