Kevin Michael Rudd was educated at the Eumundi Primary School and the Nambour State High School in Queensland. He attended the Australian National University where he gained First Class Honours in Chinese Language and History. In 1981, he was appointed as a diplomat in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs. He served at the Australian embassies in both Stockholm and Beijing - his responsibilities in Beijing covering domestic political and economic analysis. In the Department in Canberra, he worked in a range of positions including the Policy Planning Bureau. He was promoted to the rank of Assistant Secretary - declining promotion to First Assistant Secretary to pursue a career with the Queensland State Government.
In 1988, Mr Rudd took leave from the Department of Foreign Affairs to take a position as Chief of Staff to the Leader of the State Parliamentary Labor Party.
He remained as Chief of Staff to the Premier after the party won the 1989 elections - having been in Opposition for the previous 32 years.
In 1992, Mr Rudd was appointed as Director-General of the Cabinet Office - the central policy agency of the Queensland State Government. In that capacity he also worked for five years as the State Representative on the National Steering Committee on Federal State Relations.
He also Chaired an Inter-Governmental working group which developed a National Strategy on Asian Language Education and Australia's Economic Future.
In 1998, Mr Rudd was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Federal Member for Griffith. Between 1998 and 2001, he was Chair of the Party's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Policy Committee, a member of the Australian Labor Party Economics Policy Committee, and a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Securities. Mr Rudd was re-elected in the November 2001 elections and was appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Mr Rudd has written extensively on Chinese politics, Chinese foreign policy, Australia-Asia relations and globalisation. Mr Rudd was appointed as Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland in the Department of Asian Studies and Languages in 1997. He is a member of the Australian/US Leadership Dialogue, the Advisory Council of the AustralAsia Centre, the Korea-Australia Advisory Council, a founding Associate of the Centre for International Strategic Analysis and a regular guest lecturer on North Asia at the Australian Defence College.
Mr Rudd has wide-ranging interests and has been a member of the Constitutional Centenary Foundation Council, Crimestoppers and the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation. He and his wife Therese have three children and live in Norman Park in Brisbane.
