John Kampfner
Boards are being asked to price political risk into capital decisions they used to take on autopilot. Russia, China, the German economic engine, the durability of the transatlantic alliance, each is now a variable rather than a backdrop. Leaders need someone who can read the politics from inside the room, not summarise it from the headlines.
John Kampfner is an author, broadcaster and former editor of the New Statesman who helps boards and leadership teams read the geopolitics shaping Germany, Russia, Europe, and the UK with the judgement of a foreign correspondent who covered the original turning points first-hand.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with John Kampfner
- Three and a half decades of first-hand reporting on the events that now define geopolitical risk: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet collapse from Moscow, the Blair government’s wars, Merkel-era Germany, and Putin’s Russia from Reuters and Telegraph postings through to FT and BBC platforms.
- A genuinely granular reading of Germany, the EU’s largest economy and a country most UK and US commentators treat as a footnote. Why The Germans Do It Better sold over 150,000 copies and was Book of the Year in the Guardian, Economist and New Statesman.
- Institutional weight inside the UK foreign policy establishment: founding Executive Director of Chatham House’s UK in the World programme and Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, the country’s oldest defence and security think tank.
- A practitioner’s eye for how political risk lands inside organisations, sharpened by running Index on Censorship as Chief Executive and founding the Creative Industries Federation, not just from the press gallery.
- A broadcaster’s command of a room. Kampfner is regularly booked to moderate, host awards, and chair board-level discussions where the brief demands a serious geopolitical mind on stage rather than a generalist host.
Biography highlights
- Foreign correspondent for Reuters in Moscow and Bonn, then Daily Telegraph in East Berlin during the fall of the Wall and Moscow Bureau Chief during the Soviet collapse.
- Chief Political Correspondent, Financial Times (1995 to 1998); political journalist for BBC Today and Newsnight (1998 to 2000).
- Editor, The New Statesman (2005 to 2008); British Society of Magazine Editors Current Affairs Editor of the Year, 2006.
- Chief Executive, Index on Censorship (2008 to 2012); founder Chair of Turner Contemporary, Margate (2008 to 2016); founding CEO of the Creative Industries Federation (2014 to 2018).
- Author of eight books with Atlantic and others, including Why The Germans Do It Better (Sunday Times bestseller, 2020), In Search of Berlin (RSL Ondaatje Prize longlist, 2024), and Braver New World (April 2026).
- Senior Associate Fellow, RUSI (since 2019); founding Executive Director of Chatham House’s UK in the World programme (2021 to 2023); Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin (2024 to 2025).
Biography
Most Anglophone reporting on Germany stops at clichés about engineering, debt brakes, and lederhosen. Kampfner spent the decisive thirty years inside the country and the region instead: East Berlin as the Wall came down for the Daily Telegraph, Moscow as the Soviet Union dissolved, then Bonn and Berlin again as the Federal Republic absorbed the East and built the economy that now anchors the European Union.
That reporting trajectory continued through Westminster. As Chief Political Correspondent at the Financial Times in the late 1990s and a political journalist on BBC Newsnight and Today, he covered the Blair government from the inside. Blair’s Wars, published in 2003, became one of the first authoritative accounts of the Iraq decision and was cited in subsequent Whitehall enquiries.
The books since have built a coherent body of work on power, freedom and statecraft. Freedom For Sale was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. Why The Germans Do It Better sold over 150,000 copies and ran through several editions. In Search of Berlin was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and Braver New World, out in April 2026, examines ten countries solving hard problems other governments are failing to address.
The institutional credentials follow the reporting. Kampfner was the founding Executive Director of Chatham House’s UK in the World programme, set up in 2021 to critically examine Britain’s foreign policy posture after Brexit. He has been a Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI since 2019 and was a Fellow at Berlin’s Institute for Advanced Study in 2024 to 2025. He chairs Young Königswinter and deputy-chairs the Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft, the bilateral institutions that quietly shape UK-German policy traffic.
Key speaking topics
- Germany, the EU and the European economy
- Russia, Ukraine and the post-Soviet order
- UK foreign policy after Brexit
- The transatlantic alliance and the future of NATO
- Political risk for global business
- Elections and political volatility in Europe and the US
- Media, freedom of expression and democratic resilience
Ideal for
- Board and executive sessions briefing on geopolitical exposure across Europe, Russia and the transatlantic alliance
- CFOs, Chief Strategy Officers and Heads of Risk pricing political variables into capital allocation
- Annual conferences for financial services, defence, energy and industrial groups with material German or Central European exposure
- Awards ceremonies and senior moderation briefs requiring a broadcast-credible chair with substantive policy command
Audience outcomes
- A sharper, named read of where Germany, Russia and the EU are heading, grounded in primary reporting rather than headline summary
- A clearer view of how political risk is actually priced inside Whitehall, Brussels and Berlin policy circles
- A working sense of the durability, or fragility, of the institutions audiences assume are constants: NATO, the EU single market, the WTO order
- Specific reference points and named sources audiences can take back into their own briefings and board papers
Talks
A board-level read on how today’s political fault lines, from US-China and Russia to the EU’s internal strains, translate into commercial risk and opportunity for global operators.
Key takeaways:
- A working framework for separating geopolitical noise from structural shift
- Named exposures and named opportunities, sector by sector
- A clearer view of where Europe sits in the emerging order
The country most UK and US businesses underweight in their strategic thinking, read by a journalist who has covered it from the Wall to the present.
Key takeaways:
- Why the post-Merkel transition matters for European capital flows
- How Germany’s industrial model is adapting under pressure from China and the US
- What a more assertive Berlin means for UK and European business
A cycle-by-cycle read of the elections that move markets and alliances, including the US, the UK, Germany, France and the European Parliament.
Key takeaways:
- Where political risk is being mispriced
- The institutional consequences leaders should watch rather than the personality coverage
- How to brief boards on electoral exposure without overclaiming