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    A globally recognized thought leader, entrepreneur, and strategist, Robert helps corporate leaders, governments, investors, and international organizations understand the risks that define the future — and act on them before they become crises. He combines rigorous academic insight with decades of frontline experience in some of the world’s most complex environments, translating hard data into clear strategy, compelling stories, and practical action.

     

    For the past three decades, Robert has worked across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe on the defining challenges of our age: urban disruption, organized crime, cyber threats, digital harms, migration, climate security, fragile cities, AI governance, nature action, and the future of democratic resilience. His work is grounded in evidence, sharpened by field experience, and focused on impact.

     

    Ranked as a top-tier political scientist by Research.com, Robert has an h-index of 55 and an i10-index of 216. Yet his influence extends far beyond academia. He is a trusted advisor to executives, mayors, ministers, multilateral institutions, and technology leaders seeking to navigate uncertainty, anticipate risk, and scale solutions.

     

    Robert is the co-founder of The SecDev Group, a strategic digital risk and security firm helping organizations drive digital transformation and reduce cyber threats worldwide. As a principal, he leads work on digital harms, climate security, and digitally secure cities. He also co-founded the Igarapé Institute, an award-winning global think-and-do tank focused on citizen, digital, climate, and nature security, and Bioverse, a forest intelligence start-up using technology to protect critical ecosystems.

     

    Robert’s work also extends into nature action and ecological security, including initiatives in the Amazon and efforts to help build ecological corridors in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. He connects biodiversity protection, forest intelligence, climate resilience, and security in ways that are increasingly central to corporate strategy, supply-chain integrity, and long-term value creation.

    He has advised and worked with national and city governments, global technology companies including Google, Meta, Uber, and YouTube, and international organizations such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank. He is also a senior adviser to McKinsey and serves on the boards of several technology start-ups.

     

    Robert is known for making complex global risks intelligible, urgent, and actionable. His award-winning data visualizations and predictive platforms have tracked city fragility and resilience, climate mobility, cyber vulnerability, ecological risk, and AI safety and ethics — helping decision-makers see around corners and respond with confidence.

     

    A recipient of multiple academic and humanitarian awards, Robert has held faculty, fellowship, or invited appointments at Princeton University, Singularity University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Oxford, the University of San Diego, the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He co-founded Stability Journal and serves on the editorial boards of leading scholarly publications.

     

    Robert has edited, authored, or contributed to dozens of books and peer-reviewed articles. His analysis regularly informs major flagship reports from the United Nations, World Bank, World Economic Forum, OECD, and other global institutions. He is also a prolific commentator on the geopolitical forces reshaping markets and societies, writing extensively on issues ranging from critical minerals, technological competition, and AI governance to climate risk, urban disruption, organized crime, and the future of global security.

     

    His research and commentary are frequently cited in leading international media, including the BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, The Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, Le Monde, The New York Times, Wired, and many others. He is also a columnist with Foreign Policy.

     

    As a speaker, Robert brings unsual range: the intellectual credibility of a scholar, the urgency of a practitioner, and the strategic clarity of an entrepreneur. He has appeared on major global stages including the World Economic Forum in Davos, WEF agenda summits in Dubai, the Global Smart City Expo, the Pritzker Forum on Cities, and TED in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021.

     

    His keynote themes include the future of global risk, cyber insecurity, AI and democracy, climate security, nature action, fragile cities, organized crime, digital disruption, migration, urban resilience, critical minerals, technological competition, and the geopolitical shocks reshaping business and society.

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