Klaus Steiner is an economist who graduated at the Vienna University of Economics in 1995. He started his career at the Austrian Federal Chancellery and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfA) in the Department for cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe. After a three year interval, when he worked for the Delegation of the European Commission to Hungary as Head of the Institution Building unit, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2004 to work for Development Cooperation. Here he focussed for the next 14 years on national and international financial institutions (Austrian Development Bank, concessional Export Finance, IFIs) and the OECD DAC.

In 2018 he joined the Austrian Development Bank (OeEB) as Head of the Executive Department for Development Policy. After returning to the AT MfA in 2021 he served in the Department for multilateral Development cooperation as SDG focal point. The preparation of Austria’s second Voluntary National Review on the implementation of the Agenda 2030, presented to the UN HLPF in 2024, was one of his responsibilities.

In May 2025 Mr. Steiner has been appointed Director of the Department „Development Finance and Thematic Issues” including responsibility for the OECD DAC.