Michael Davies was an international civil servant for 33 years, working in various administrative capacities for the World Bank, the International Civil Service Commission, the Food and Agriculture Organization and latterly as Chief of the Compensation and Benefits Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In 1998, he was assigned from IDB to the World Bank to provide high-level external advice on compensation reform. He has been a consultant to organizations of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research; the Bank for International Settlements, the World Health Organization, the OPEC Fund for International Development and IDB. He initiated the first consultative forum for personnel specialists of the International Financial Institutions and was a founding board member of the Association for Human Resources Management in International Organizations