I am a former European credit markets and M&A guy who started out as a diplomat. — so I have some pretty diverse interests.

The official line is that I am a banking and finance specialist at the economic consultancy Global Macro Advisors focusing on global economics and corporate strategy. Previously, I held positions at Lion Strategy Advisors, Deutsche Bank, Bain Consulting, the Corporate Executive Board and Yahoo. I have a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University. So, I consider myself to basically be an economist cum geopolitical strategist.

From an ideological perspective, I would call myself a libertarian realist. I am a firm believer in the primacy of markets over a statist approach. However, I am no ideologue who believes that markets can solve all problems. Often government intervention and oversight is not just wanted but warranted.

Having lived in a lot of different places, I tend to take a global approach to economics and politics. I started my blogging career largely because I was concerned that our economic and political masters are ill-equipped to deal with the volatility of the new globalised world.

I started my career as a diplomat in the foreign service and speak German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and French as well as English and can read a number of other European languages. So, you will probably see a few translated texts from time to time to give a different perspective.

You can get a feel for my writing by looking at the popular posts section on the sidebar. Also feel free to just peruse my back catalog of posts using ‘tags’ in the bottom sidebar. These tag labels help give you a sense of post topic for those subjects of greatest interest to you.

I enjoy a good debate on these issues and I hope you enjoy my blogs. Feel free to email me at [email protected].