Ian Bremmer

Managing Risk in an Unstable World

To navigate globalization, business decision-makers often weigh economic variables when considering overseas investments or market exposure. But to spot crucial opportunities and manage risk, they must also understand the political factors and trends changing our world in real time, especially as political risk increasingly impacts financial markets and investment strategies.

Whether it’s increasingly contentious relations between China and the United States, the war in Ukraine, a more complex regulatory environment in Europe, a newly global focus from India, surges of populism in Latin America, heightened competition in Africa, or dozens of other politically driven trends, political analyst and entrepreneur Ian Bremmer details how political risk is creating new sets of business winners and losers — particularly as the decline of free-market capitalism and the rise of state intervention reshape key domestic economic sectors.

Audiences will learn:

• How to spot political risk on the horizon and balance it against economic opportunities, including the effects on financial markets.
• How to understand the opportunities and dangers of multilayered relations between Washington and Beijing, and the implications for the global superpower rivalry — and the debate over the next global superpower.
• How to identify the broader trends remaking tomorrow’s global balance of power, including the role of the Middle East and the ongoing war between states over economic and strategic interests.
• How to process the technological changes now transforming geopolitics, including the influence of the world's powerhouse tech companies on the global order.

Navigating the Geopolitical Recession

For the past 15 years, the post–Cold War global order has been breaking down, with significant geopolitical implications for international relations, economic stability, and the positioning of global powers. This breakdown has left us responding to a series of crises with both political, market, and business implications — including the impact of the financial crisis on global stability. In this presentation, Ian Bremmer explains why geopolitics has entered a bust cycle, marked by the end of the free-market era and the consequences for global economic systems.

The world’s most powerful country — the United States — has become the most politically dysfunctional high-income country. The world’s most important bilateral relationship — U.S.–China — is deteriorating more quickly than leaders can build new guardrails. Today’s global institutions no longer reflect the world’s true balance of power. The result: a growing vacuum of leadership and cross-border coordination, creating a global power vacuum that limits international cooperation and the ability to set an effective international agenda. This geopolitical recession will continue to limit our ability to respond to crises like the pandemic, the Russia–Ukraine war, climate change, and the emergence of disruptive new technologies.

Ian Bremmer shares ideas and insights to help policymakers and business decision-makers navigate a world in accelerating transition — where the question of free-market winners and losers is more relevant than ever.

The Power of Crisis

In a G-Zero world — one without strong and sustainable international leadership — Ian Bremmer argues we are unprepared for a trio of looming crises: future global health emergencies, transformative climate change, and the next technological revolution. The absence of global leadership has resulted in a power vacuum, increasing volatility and uncertainty.

In this presentation, Bremmer discusses the geopolitics of:

The War in Ukraine: How will Russia’s challenge to the existing international system — and China’s evolving effort to find the most profitable role in ending it — shape the next security order and the future of the global economy? This includes the ongoing war between states over economic and strategic interests and the question of who wins in the current global order.

Climate Change: What risks will it create for political and business decision-makers in years to come, and what lessons can it teach us about the future of international cooperation — especially given the challenges in setting a unified global agenda?

The Geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence

What comes after the G-Zero world order? Today, it’s not governments but the world’s dominant tech companies that set the rules in the digital world. They — not our elected leaders — decide how we share ideas and information. They wield extraordinary, real-time power.

How will these technology titans use that power? They will transform the ways we work, think, learn, play, and live. We will have longer, healthier, and more productive lives that would dazzle those who lived only in a dial-up world. But these same tech companies will also influence military power, reshape global trade and investment patterns, and impact our ability to address climate change.

In this presentation, Ian Bremmer explores how tech titans will determine the next world order — and whether we face a brighter future or a world with diminished freedoms.