Niall Ferguson
Managing Director
Niall is one of the world's leading historians and an influential commentator on contemporary politics and economics. He has published sixteen books, including The Ascent of Money, Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist, The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, and most recently DOOM: The Politics of Catastrophe. His many prizes and awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).
Pierpaolo Barbieri
Executive Director
Pierpaolo holds an AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and an MPhil from Cambridge. He is currently senior associate at the Applied History Project at the Harvard Kennedy School and was Lt. Charles Henry Fiske III Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is also the founder of Ualá, a financial inclusion project in Argentina. His first book, Hitler's Shadow Empire: The Nazis and the Spanish Civil War has been published in the U.S., UK, Italy, Spain, Argentina and China. He is fluent in Italian, Spanish and French.
John Sununu
Director of Growth
John holds a BA from Yale University and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. His research has received numerous awards, including the Marandon Fellowship, the Rouse Fund for Peace Fellowship, the Cornell Memorial Grant, and the Jewett Foundation Award. Prior to joining Greenmantle, he worked at Via Transportation, where he oversaw new market expansion; the Boston Consulting Group, where he sat in the public sector practice; and the US Department of State, where he served as a diplomatic interpreter. He is fluent in French.
CHRIS MILLER
Director (Eurasia)
Chris Miller is Assistant Professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He also serves as Eurasia Director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of four books including the New York Times bestseller Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (2022), as well as Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia (2018). He regularly publishes in publications such Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Wall Street Journal. He received his PhD and MA from Yale University and his AB from Harvard University.
CALE CLINGENPEEL
Chief Economist
Cale holds a BS in international economics from Georgetown University and a MA in international economics and finance from Johns Hopkins University. He previously served on the staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2018-2021 including as Senior Advisor to the Chairman and as an Economist. He has also served as Chief Economist at the America First Policy Institute, on staff at the U.S. Senate, and at Arctic policy-focused organizations.
Kathryn salam
Editorial Director
Kathryn holds an MA in political science from New York University and an AB in international relations from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining Greenmantle, she served as the web editor for ForeignAffairs.com.
ALICE HAN
Director, Economist (China)
Alice holds an AB in history and economics from Harvard University and a MA in East Asian Studies from Stanford University with a focus on Chinese political economy and fintech. She has worked as research assistant to Ambassador Nicholas Burns, former U.S. Under Secretary of State, at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center and Niall Ferguson at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Her Harvard senior thesis on Cold War Sino-French relations won the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize. She is fluent in Chinese (Mandarin), French and German.
AVA KELLEY
Director (U.S.)
Ava holds a BA with honors in International Studies and Economics from the Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining Greenmantle, she worked as a research assistant to economist Steve H. Hanke at the Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. She speaks Spanish.
NICHOLAS KUMLEBEN
Director (Energy)
Nicholas holds a BA with Highest Distinction in History from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar. His academic research on the economic history of Africa and Latin America won the Bernard Peyton Chamberlain Memorial Prize in World History. His recent research has focused on the global energy transition, the history of oil and gas markets, and the economics of climate change. Nicholas is a CFA charterholder and speaks Spanish and Italian.
Jay Mens
Director (MENA)
Jay Mens is Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange. He was previously Ernest May Fellow for History and Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Jay writes regularly on international relations, past and present, in academic and popular publications. He holds a B.A. in Politics with Double First Class honours and an M.Phil. in History, both from the University of Cambridge, and is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Oxford. He speaks French, German, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Farsi.
Stephanie petrella
Director of Research
Stephanie holds a BA in political science and Russian from the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as a research associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and publishes a daily news brief on Russia’s political economy. Stephanie previously worked in the Reconnecting Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She speaks Russian.
Julieta Pola
Director (Latin America)
Julieta holds an MSc in Politics from the London School of Economics, an MA in Economics from Fordham University, and a BS in Journalism from the Universidad Iberoamericana. She previously worked at Citibanamex, where she specialized in analytics and quantitative research. She also served as an advisor and consultant to the Minister of Environment and Foreign Relations Ministry of Mexico. She is fluent in Spanish.
Joseph de Weck
Director (Europe)
Joseph holds a BSc from the London School of Economics and a MA from Sciences Po Paris and the University of St Gallen. Joseph is a European Security Initiative Fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A columnist for the German foreign affairs magazine Internationale Politik Quarterly, he is a regular contributor to publications such as Foreign Policy and Der Spiegel and is the author of Emmanuel Macron: The Revolutionary President (2021). Joseph has a background in financial and trade diplomacy serving as Secretary to the Swiss government’s Brexit task force. He is fluent in German and French.
Emile simpson
Senior Advisor (Security and Defense)
Emile Simpson is a trial attorney practising in London; his practice is focused on commercial law and tax, and he specialises in financial sanctions. Emile advises Greenmantle in particular on international security, and defence technology. This focus comes from his previous experience in the British Army, in which he completed three tours of duty in Afghanistan as an infantry officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles; and from his academic experience as a research fellow at Harvard University. He is the author of "War From the Ground Up: Twenty First Century Combat at Politics", and numerous articles and op-eds.
EYCK FREYMANN
Senior Advisor (Indo-Pacific)
Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and a non-resident research fellow at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.
Trained as an economic and diplomatic historian of China, Eyck works at the intersection of finance, climate policy, and national security. His book One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World is assigned on syllabi at Harvard, Cambridge, Columbia, Peking University, and elsewhere, and his commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Wire China, and The Atlantic. He is currently working on two books: one about the geopolitics of climate change and the other about how to strengthen deterrence in the Taiwan Strait.
Eyck previously held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Columbia. Before that, he was a research assistant to Graham Allison at Harvard and Shi Zhiqin at Tsinghua University. He received his DPhil from Oxford; his MPhil from Cambridge; and his AM and AB from Harvard.
John-Clark Levin
Senior Advisor (AI)
John-Clark Levin serves as Research Lead for Ray Kurzweil at Kurzweil Technologies, where he conducts foresight about the emerging capabilities of artificial intelligence and a wide range of related technologies. For the past decade, he has studied AI and its impacts at Harvard and Cambridge, where he is currently finishing a PhD. He regularly advises governments, corporations, and NGOs on issues spanning both technical and policy dimensions of AI, and has lectured at dozens of institutions including the U.S. Naval War College, Georgetown University, and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. His commentary has appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, and MIT Technology Review.
John Sfakianakis
Senior Advisor (Middle East)
John is the Chief Economist of the Gulf Research Center in Riyadh. A Fellow at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs). Trained as an Arabist and economist on the Middle East under the supervision of Roger Owen, John works at the intersection of finance, business and economics. He worked and lived in the Middle East for more than twenty-five years in multiple private and public sector roles. He recently published The Economy of Saudi Arabia in the 21 st Century and is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Middle East Political Economy series for Oxford University Press. He is working on a book about industrial policy in the Middle East and The Oxford Handbook of the Saudi Arabian Economy. He speaks Arabic, French, and Greek.
Justin Stebbing
Senior Advisor (Science and Health)
Justin Stebbing is a Professor of Oncology at Imperial College London, having trained at Trinity College Oxford prior to posts at Johns Hopkins and the Royal Marsden. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists. Justin serves as Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene, Springer Nature's cancer journal, and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has published more than 600 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Nature Medicine, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Ryan yost
Senior Macro Analyst
Ryan holds a BS Summa Cum Laude from Widener University in finance and computer science. Prior to Greenmantle he was an analyst at the IMF where he built machine learning pipelines for capacity development and macro research.
HARRY HALEM
Military Analyst
Harry holds an MA (Hons) from the University of St Andrews and an MSc from the London School of Economics. He is currently Senior Fellow at Yorktown Institute, Senior Research Fellow at Policy Exchange, and a PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics. He has published widely on multiple strategic topics, and focuses on the future of warfare and the history of operational art.
April gao
Research Analyst
April holds a B.S. in Quantitative Economics, History, and German Language & Culture from Tufts University. Prior to joining Greenmantle, she worked as research assistant to Dr. David Proctor and Dr. Yannis Ioannides, focusing on the Byzantine Empire and colonial Australian economic history. She also has experience in public sector audit investigations. April speaks German, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese.
Briac Panchout
Research Analyst
Briac holds a B.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Exeter and an M.Sc. in Human Rights and Politics from the London School of Economics. Prior to joining Greenmantle, Briac worked at Citi in Global Intelligence and Analysis, where he specialised in African geopolitics. Briac is a native French speaker.
Joon Hyeok Yang
Research Analyst
Joon holds an MSc in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Prior to joining Greenmantle, he worked at the Chief Economist Office of PricewaterhouseCoopers as a macro research intern. He also worked as a research assistant at the Erasmus School of Economics in behavioral finance and sovereign debt issuance. Joon is a native Korean speaker.
Pedro Siemsen Giestas
Research Analyst
Pedro holds a B.A. in History and a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University. He's a co-founder and editor of Pindograma, a website focused on Brazilian politics. Prior to Greenmantle, he researched German trade policy in the interwar period, the economic impact of floods in Brazil, and environmental land regulations in the Amazon. Pedro is a native Portuguese speaker, fluent in German, and proficient in Spanish.
Sophie coste
Research Analyst
Sophie holds a BS magna cum laude in science, technology, and international affairs from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She worked for the Center for Strategic and International Studies as an energy security and climate change research intern and at SAFE as a critical minerals policy intern. She is fluent in French.
ANDREY CASASOLA
Director of Business Operations
Andrey holds a B.A. in International Affairs and Political Science from Florida State University. He is a Master’s student of Global Business Administration at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has a decade of experience spanning legal, administrative, and business operations. He is fluent in Spanish.
URSULA MCMILLAN
Executive Assistant
Ursula holds a B.A from Venezuela’s Universidad Metropolitana. She has over a decade of experience in logistics and executive support. She is fluent in German and Spanish.
George Whitford
Growth Analyst
George holds a A.B in Government and an A.B/A.M in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. Prior to joining Greenmantle, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group.
Morgan Mengini
Finance Lead
Morgan holds a B.A. in Political Science from The Pennsylvania State University. She has a decade of accounting and administrative experience in the for profit and non-profit sectors.
Lissa Starnes Zelaya
Executive Assistant
Lissa studied Political Science at San Francisco State University and played Division I tennis before discovering that art was her true passion. She holds a BFA from the Academy of Art University and taught figure drawing at San Francisco Art Institute while studying under Howard Brodie and Manuel Neri. Lissa founded two successful companies before working at Stanford University. She supports Niall Ferguson as his Executive Assistant.
Kyle Kinnie
Correspondence Secretary
Kyle holds a BA with Honors in International Relations from Stanford University, where he studied under Niall Ferguson. His honors thesis, "The Eagle and the Dragon: Sino-German Military Cooperation 1919-1938", received the Departmental Thesis Prize. Kyle is fluent in Mandarin, German, and Spanish.
Shaheeda Kariko
Administrative Assistant
Shaheeda Kariko holds a BA in Corporate Communications from CUNY-Baruch College. Before joining Greenmantle, she served as an Administrative Assistant at the NY State Attorney General’s office. Shaheeda is fluent in Afrikaans and Spanish.