An award-winning keynote speaker and global Thought leader
Afshin Molavi is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and founder of the Emerging World newsletter. As a former journalist, geopolitical risk analyst and World Bank staffer, Molavi has traveled widely, logging hundreds of thousands of miles across the globe, chronicling our world in surprising ways.
Peppering his talks with anecdotes from his travels, a deep reading of history, broad industry knowledge, and touches of pop culture, Molavi speaks widely on geopolitical risk, global trends, globalization, and the intersection of policy, business, and markets. From Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi, from Boston to Beijing, Molavi has delivered impactful keynotes for a wide range of audiences from global asset management firms and leading investment banks to travel and tourism boards and trade associations.
A uniquely insightful commentator, Molavi draws from a wide range of his travel experiences, readings, interviews, and his global network to inform his talks. His topics include:
The Five Disruption-Proof Global Trends Disruption Our Future
The New Geopolitical Risk (And Opportunity) Map
Putin’s Bomb and the Global Shrapnel
Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai or Goodbye: New Silk Roads and Our Future
The Rise of The Rest and What It Means for the West
Why Travel Matters
How Coffee Explains the World
Gangnam-Style Globalization
Molavi is also co-founder of the emerge85 Lab, an initiative dedicated to exploring the economic, political, and cultural ramifications arising from rapid urbanization, unprecedented connectivity, and growing middle classes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America – home to 85% of the world’s population.
A former Dubai-based journalist with Reuters, Molavi’s writings over the years have appeared in the Financial Times, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, BloombergView, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Businessweek, Journal of Commerce, National Geographic, Institutional Investor, and dozens of academic and specialty publications.
He has also served as a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, where he was a former director of the World Economy Roundtable. Previously, Molavi worked as an advisor at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector development arm of the World Bank and at Oxford Analytica, the global advisory firm.
He is also founder and editor of Emerging World newsletter on Substack, a blog that explores global trends, emerging markets, and globalization, and serves as a locus of thought leadership for some of the most prominent investors and analysts.
He is also an avid novel reader, a “weekend warrior” in basketball and tennis, a long-suffering Washington sports fan, an award-winning documentary film producer, and father of two kids. He lives in Washington DC.
