Our team has decades of collective experience working across the Indo-Pacific, North America, and the Middle East. We conduct research in local languages including Mandarin and Cantonese, French, Arabic, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Bahasa. Our global expertise includes a specific focus on China and its international footprint.

Our team comes from a wide range of professional backgrounds, including academia, defence, finance, and industry. As such, we have a fundamental understanding commercial challenges as well as regional operating environments. 

 

 

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Sam Olsen

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Founder and CEO, based in London. Sam has 25+ years studying China  and has just returned to the UK after a decade living in Hong Kong and  Singapore. He has considerable experience in leading political risk and  business intelligence projects across Asia. Before that he served in the US  Senate working on China trade policy and was an intelligence officer in the  British Army. Sam is an advisor on China to senior politicians in the UK and  other allied countries, and leads the weekly podcast
What China Wants.  

 

 

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Stewart Paterson

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Head of Geo-Economic Risk, based in London. Stewart has been following  the Chinese economy for 30 years, 18 of which he lived in Asia. He was  Head of Asia Pacific Equity strategy at CLSA and Credit Suisse before setting  up Riley Paterson Investment management in Singapore. He relocated to the  UK in 2012 and is a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. Stewart is the author of “China, Trade and Power.” 

 

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Susan Walton

Director and Head of Business, based in London. Susan is a senior finance  executive with 25+ years of experience running the global institutional  investment research franchises of top tier investment banks in London,  New York and Hong Kong. She specialises in research on emerging markets with particular expertise in the Indo-Pacific and South East Asia, where  she worked and lived for several years. Susan has co-founded a number  of successful firms in the research and marketing sectors. 

 

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Peter Davidson

Head of Political Risk, based in Singapore. Peter previously worked for the  British Government and was the coordinator of the Shangri-La Dialogues  in Singapore for seven years. He is a Sinologist and fluent Chinese speaker.