Kemal Derviş is a Turkish economist and politician. He was born on January 10, 1949 in Istanbul to a Turkish father and a Dutch-German mother.

As Minister for Economic Affairs in Turkey when Bülent Ecevit was prime minister, Derviş was the architect of Turkey's successful three-year economic recovery program launched in 2001. Before being named to head the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), he was a member of the Turkish parliament, and a member of the joint commission of the Turkish and European parliaments. He previously was a member of the European Convention.

A Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development, member the Task Force on Global Public Goods and the Special Commission on the Balkans and associated with the Economics and Foreign Policy Forum in Istanbul, Derviş was instrumental in strengthening Turkey’s prospects of starting membership negotiations with the European Union.