Nilgün Gökgür is a development economist and holds an M.P.A from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University and an MA and BA in economics from the University of Basle, Switzerland. Her entire professional career has been devoted to policy reform in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa and South East Asia.  She has undertaken numerous assignments in 30 countries.  Her field experience includes two years of working in Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta).  Previously she has worked as Research Associate at the Harvard Business School and also at the former Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID).

She works in the areas of state-owne reforms, privatization of commercial, industrial and financial enterprises, private particiption infrastructure (telecom, energy, transport and water) and private sector development.  She has authored and co-authored several reports at the end of her assignments funded by the international organizations including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the UN agencies, USAID and DfID.

She has worked as a team leader in Togo, Uganda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Philippines.