Willis Sparks Speaker Biography
Director of Global Macro, Eurasia Group
and Geopolitical Risk Management Expert
An expert on geopolitical risk, Willis Sparks shares with audience the market-moving impact of politics in the world’s most dynamic developed and developing states, long-term geopolitical trends, including the rise of emerging market volatility and a country-by-country analysis of current internal political dynamics.
Political Risk
Willis Sparks is director of global macro at Eurasia Group, the world’s largest political risk consulting and advisory firm. He focuses on top global political risks as well as US politics and elections. He is a thought leader within the firm on issues, trends, opportunities and risks created by political developments in major emerging market countries, US politics and foreign policy and current geopolitical conflicts.
Media
Prior to joining Eurasia Group in 2005, Sparks worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he wrote on transnational terrorism and US national security. He regularly gives speeches on market-moving trends in international politics for investor and corporate audiences in the US and abroad. Television appearances include BBC, CNBC, CBS Evening News, CNN, Bloomberg, FOX, Yahoo, BNN, and other networks.
Education
Sparks holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where he specialized in international security policy and the study of the former Soviet Union. He also earned an MA degree in International Relations from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris. Willis holds two BA degrees from Brown University and is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he spent four year in the actor training program. Between 1990 and 2001, Sparks performed featured roles on Broadway, off-Broadway, in film and on television.
Willis Sparks Speaking Topics
Geopolitical Risk: Emerging Trends and Hot Spots
In this presentation, Willis Sparks outlines why global investors and business leaders must understand the national, regional, and global political trends that will create both the next wave of opportunities and new generation of risks that will define their operating environments for years to come. With vivid illustrations drawn from today’s headlines and tomorrow’s forecasts, Sparks details how and why politics and political interests will play an ever larger role in market outcomes around the world. Audiences will learn: the market-moving impact of politics in the world’s most dynamic developed and developing states, long-term geopolitical trends, including the rise of emerging market volatility, and a country-by-country analysis of current internal political dynamics