Prof. ZHANG Lei is one of the WTO Chair Holders selected by the World Trade Organization (WTO). He currently works at Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (SUIBE) as Dean of the School of Trade Negotiations, Dean of the WTO Chair Institute-China, and Director of the Shanghai Center for Global Trade and Economic Governance (SC-GTEG). He is also a PhD supervisor of Law at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. He earned a doctoral degree in Industrial Economics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (one year in City University of Hong Kong). He was once a visiting scholar at the WTO Secretariat, Harvard University, University of Lausanne and Georgetown University Law Center. He has been appointed as WIPO arbitrator, UNCTAD Virtual Institute coordinator, UNESCAP Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT) focal point coordinator, Intellectual Property overseas rights expert of the MOFCOM of China, Global Value Chain Expert of the Advisory Committee on Economic and Trade Policy of the MOFCOM of China. He has presided over many key research projects sponsored by the National Social Science Foundation, the National Natural Science Foundation, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education, and the projects entrusted by the Director-General of the WTO.

He has published several books and dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is among the chief editors of Journal of Global Trade and Economic Governance and China WTO Review. His research interests focus on multi-disciplinary approaches to the WTO, global economic and trade governance and intellectual property.