M.Phil., International Relations, University of Cambridge, UK
M.Sc., International Securities, Investment and Banking, The ICMA Centre – The Business School for Financial Markets – Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK
B.A., Politics & Modern History, University of Manchester, UK
German Politics & Russian, University of Frankfurt, Germany
Including one-year scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service)
First visited Moscow in 1986, spent over 20 years living and working in the USSR, Russia, Central Asia and Azerbaijan since the late 1980s
Native fluency in Russian and German
Began publishing on Russia and Central Asia in both English and Russian in the early 1990s
Published numerous accurate forecasts on international politics, Russia, Central Asia and business
Has written on Russia for
RIA-Novosti
Ian’s weekly columns for the Opinion & Analysis rubric became one of the most visited sections of RIA Novosti’s English website, with many articles syndicated by Johnson’s Russia List, UPI and newspapers in Europe, Asia and North America.
Russia Beyond The Headlines
Ian’s regular Op-Ed columns were among the most popular on this English-language website
www.gazeta.ru (in Russian)
Gazeta.ru is one of the most popular Russian language news sources with over a million visitors daily
Ian’s articles regularly achieved large or near record numbers of hits, clicks and comments
Novaya Gazeta (Новая газета) (in Russian)
A popular Russian print and online newspaper
Economist Intelligence Unit, UK
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Cambridge, UK
Business Monitor International Limited, London, UK
The Moscow Times
The Moscow Times Business Review
Russia Profile, Moscow
Russian Journal (Русский журнал), Moscow (in Russian)
This site was owned by former Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovsky
Trendline Russia (sponsored sections on the Russian economy which appeared in The Washington Post and The Daily Telegraph in London, November-December 2006
Has written on Central Asia for
the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, UK
Journal of Democracy, Washington D.C.
Russia Profile, Moscow
Izvestiya (Известия), Moscow (in Russian)
Res Publica, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic (in Russian)
Editor, English Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
an English version of Germany’s leading broadsheet published jointly by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the International Herald Tribune
Consulting projects in Central Asia include:
PriceWaterhouse: Privatization, Strategic Investment and Capital Markets, USAID;
Consultant to a Central Bank, Head of Project Maxwell Stamp LLC, EU TACIS, UK
Corporate communications projects include
Russian Central Bank
Russian Railways, Russia’s 4th largest company by revenue and one of the largest transport companies in the world. Since 2004 (online as of February 2006). Russian Railways employs about 1 million people
Basic Element, one of Russia’s largest private companies and diversified industrial groups across six sectors: energy & mining, manufacturing, financial services (banking, insurance, pension funds & leasing), construction & real estate, agribusiness and airport management, as well as media and port management. It employs 250,000 people
The Razgulay Group (Группа «Разгуляй»), a quoted company and one of Russia’s leading agricultural holdings
Rosneft Oil Company, Moscow
including work on Rosneft’s 2007 $10.7 bn IPO on the London Stock Exchange and on the Russian venues of RTS and MICEX in Moscow, the largest IPO to that date in Russia and the fifth largest in global financial history
International Information Department, YUKOS Oil Company, Moscow
Strategist to owner/chairman of a Moscow bank
Author, Doing Business in Yemen, 2005, a 200-page guide