Biographical note

Cecilia Emma Sottilotta is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Department of International Human and Social Sciences of the University for Foreigners of Perugia (Unistrapg) and, since 2021, Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, where she teaches Political Risk Analysis in a European Perspective. She completed her PhD in Political Theory at LUISS University in 2013. Between 2016 and 2019, she was involved in the research project "The Choice for Europe since Maastricht: Member States’ preferences for economic and fiscal integration" (EMU Choices) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, as coordinator of the Southern Europe research team covering Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta and Cyprus. From 2017 to 2022 she served as Assistant Professor of International Relations and Global Politics at the American University of Rome. She has been Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Salzburg, Austria (2016), Visiting Professor at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia (2017 and 2023), DAAD Visiting Research Fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies – GIGA Hamburg (2019), Visiting Researcher at the Jacques Delors Centre of the Hertie School, Berlin (2021), Visiting Researcher at the Centrum für Europäische Politik, Berlin (2024).

Julian Campisi is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto –Scarborough. He completed his PhD in Political Science at York University in 2019. His research interests are predominantly in the field of international political economy and comparative politics, specifically the methodologies that underpin political risk assessments in the private and public realms, with specific interest in the Italian case. Julian was a 2022 Associate Fellow at JHU SAIS Bologna, a 2021 MITACS Canadian Science Policy Fellow with the Department of National Defence, and a recent S&T Fellow with the IAI on global change research. In 2015–2016 he was a visiting scholar at LUISS University in Rome; he completed his MA at UBC Vancouver in European Studies, and his BA at University of Ottawa in International Studies. Julian has worked and studied in China, Australia, and Italy over the years in a variety of industries. Currently, he teaches courses on Canadian politics, IPE, public policy, IR, and multiculturalism, in addition to providing consulting advice on geopolitical risks.

Johannes Leitner is co-founder and Managing Partner at LM Political Risk and Strategy Advisory, a boutique-advisory firm in Austria. He is a recognised expert in the fields of geostrategy, trade compliance management, political risk management, and global business strategy with more than 15 years of professional experience. In addition, he is academic director of the Executive MBA International Management at the University of Applied Science BFI Vienna. Johannes Leitner frequently leads expert and academic panels at international conferences hosted by business and academic institutions, such as the University of Cambridge (2019), the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (2022), the Vienna University of Economics and Business (2023), the GCM Parker Conference for Compliance Professionals (2023), the Economic Council of Germany (2023), the Eastern Economic Council of the German Industry (2024). He received his PhD from the Vienna University of Economics and Business after graduating in International Business Studies at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and in Political Science at the University of Vienna. He was also a visiting scholar at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Hannes Meissner is a political scientist focusing on political risk analysis and political risk management of multinational enterprises with a focus on Eastern Europe, Russia, South Caucasus, and Central Asia. He is Managing Partner at LM Political Risk and Strategy Advisory GmbH and an expert on (geo)political risks in Eastern Europe, the Black Sea region, and Central Asia in the Expert Team Global Political Economy at the University for Economics, Management & Finance – University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna. He is also part of the Research Group Eastern Europe at the University of Vienna and is associated with the University of Gothenburg in the V-Dem Project, serving as a country expert on Turkmenistan. Hannes Meissner holds a doctoral degree (PhD) from the University of Hamburg. During his doctoral studies, he was a PhD fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and participated in the research programme "Corruption and Informal Networks" at the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen. Hannes Meissner was a PhD scholar of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation (KAS) and received a full scholarship by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany.