Dongchul Cho is President of Korea Development Institute(KDI) and KDI School of Public Policy and Management. Before he became the president of KDI, he was a professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. Until April 2020, he served as a member of the Monetary Policy Board at the Bank of Korea for 4 years. Prior to this, he was chief economist and head of Macroeconomic and Financial Policy Department at the Korea Development Institute(KDI).
He also served as a member of the National Economic Advisory Council to the President from 2013 to 2014, as a member of the Presidential Council for Future and Vision from 2008 to 2010, as senior counselor to the Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Macro Policy Advisory Team at the Ministry of Finance and Economy from 2005 to 2006, as a member of the Policy Advisory Committee for the Prime Minister in 2004, and as a member of the Presidency Undertaking Advisory Committee in 2003. Before he joined the KDI in 1995, Dr. Cho was a professor of Economics at Texas A&M University.

He graduated from Seoul National University and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US.