NDI Staff: Biographies
Gordon Davis
G. Gordon Davis is NDI's resident director for China, based Hong Kong, where he focuses on programs that involve public participation and government transparency in mainland China.
Mr. Davis joined NDI in 2006, having worked the previous two years for the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors (NAR) where he developed relationships with Vietnam and India, and played a lead role in creating the International Housing Coalition, a joint venture with Habitat for Humanity and others to promote affordable housing on the international development agenda and stimulate involvement of the private sector in alleviating the global housing crisis. Mr. Davis had earlier worked for the NAR from 1998-2000 at which time he conducted international real estate outreach activities with China, Thailand, and other Asian countries, and helped create the International Consortium of Real Estate Associations, a coalition of 24 national real estate organizations that collectively represent nearly two million real estate professionals around the world.
Between his NAR positions, Mr. Davis served for two years as the China liaison for the American Bar Association in Beijing, where he organized rule-of-law programs for Chinese lawyers, judges, business officials, regulators, NGO representatives, and others on topics including environmental governance, criminal law and defense, real estate law and practice, and legal aid.
An attorney, Mr. Davis practiced law in New York for 27 years before leaving active practice in 1997. In 1976 he founded Davis & Finucane, a law partnership where he concentrated on environmental litigation and later shifted to international environmental law and policy consulting in Asia. For three years before that, he served as counsel to the Adirondack Park Agency, a state regulatory body that controls land use and environmental impact in the 6 million-acre Adirondack Park. He began his career on Wall Street in 1970.
Mr. Davis holds degrees from Yale and the University of Virginia. He has taught as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Mr. Davis has published and lectured in Asia, Europe and the United States on security of tenure, environmental law and policy, land use regulation, regional trade agreements, international development assistance and other topics.