Parag Khanna
Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, leading global strategist, world traveler and best-selling author
Dr. Parag Khanna is a visionary strategic futurist and bestselling author. He is the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a boutique advisory firm that marries rigorous data analysis, sophisticated scenarios, and cutting-edge mapping to generate foresight for confident decision-making.
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Parag Khanna's 2025 Biography
About Parag Khanna
Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is Founder & CEO of Climate Alpha, an AI-powered analytics platform that forecasts asset values to future-proof global real estate, and Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. Parag’s latest book is MOVE: Where People Are Going for a Better Future (2021), which was preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019). He is author of a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also author of Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”
Parag has been an adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends program. From 2013-2018 he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. From 2006-2015, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation. During 2007, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a senior geopolitical adviser to United States Special Operations Forces. From 2002-5, he was the Global Governance Fellow at the Brookings Institution; from 2000-2002, he worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; and from 1999-2000, he was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
A widely cited global intellectual, Dr. Khanna provides regular commentaries for international media. His 2008 cover essay for the New York Times Magazine titled “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony,” is one of the most globally debated and influential essays since the end of the Cold War. Khanna’s essays, reportage, and columns have appeared in major international publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, National Geographic, TIME, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, Popular Science, Axios, Forbes, The Atlantic, Quartz, Foreign Policy, Noema, Harper’s, BusinessWeek, The Guardian, The National Interest, McKinsey Quarterly, The American Interest, Global Policy, Stratfor, Esquire, Slate.com, and Die Zeit.
Dr. Khanna also appears frequently in media around the world such as CNN, BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and other broadcasters. In 2010, he became the first video-blogger for ForeignPolicy.com and from 2010-12, co-authored the Hybrid Reality blog on BigThink. From 2008-9, Parag was the host of “InnerView” on MTV. He was a consultant to the National Geographic series Origins. Khanna spoke at TED in 2016, TED Global 2009, was a guest host of TED Global 2012, and lead speaker at TEDxGateway in 2018. His TED talks have been viewed more than three million times. The maps customized for Dr. Khanna’s books have been displayed in numerous prestigious international art exhibitions.
Parag lectures frequently at international conferences and gives tailored briefings to government leaders and corporate executives on global trends and scenarios, systemic risks and technological disruptions, and market entry strategies and economic master planning. He has provided expertise to many governments including the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia, Bhutan, Chile, Malta, and numerous others. In 2016, he served on the Singapore government’s Committee on the Future Economy and currently sits on the UAE Ministry of Economy’s International Advisory Council. He also currently serves as a senior advisor to Gulf Capital, sits on the board of directors of the Out of Eden Walk, and as a member of the advisory boards of GeoQuant, Graticule Asset Management Asia (GAMA), Datarama, and Henley & Partners, and previously on the Innovation Advisory Board of DBS Bank and Globality.
Dr. Khanna holds a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In 2017, he was awarded a Richard von Weizsaecker fellowship of the Robert Bosch Academy. He has been a Senior Fellow of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, Visiting Fellow at LSE IDEAS, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Distinguished Visitor at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin, Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly, Visiting Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Non-Resident Associate of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. He has received grants from the United Nations Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, and Ford Foundation.
Born in India, Parag grew up in the United Arab Emirates, New York, and Germany. He is an accomplished adventurer who has traveled to more than 150 countries on all continents. Some of his lengthy journeys include driving from the Baltic Sea through the Balkans and across Turkey and the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea, across the rugged terrain of Tibet and Xinjiang provinces in western China, and ten thousand kilometers from London to Ulaanbaatar in the Mongolia Charity Rally. He has climbed numerous 20,000-foot plus peaks, and trekked in the Alps, Himalayas, and Tien Shan mountain ranges. Parag is also a competitive tennis player.
Parag has been honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and has served on the WEF’s Global Future Council on Mobility, Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics, and advisory board of its Future of Urban Development Initiative. He also serves on the board of trustees of the New Cities Foundation, Council of the American Geographical Society, advisory board of Independent Diplomat. He is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, International Institute for Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In 2002, he was awarded the OECD Future Leaders Prize. He speaks German, Hindi, French, Spanish and basic Arabic.
Parag Khanna's 2025 Talks & Topics
Today’s macro landscape features a volatile mix of geopolitical fragmentation, trade distortions, interest rate gyrations and currency manipulation – as well as significant new drivers such as demographic shifts, technological disruptions and climate risk. What new regime is likely to emerge and how can investors find alpha across geographies and asset classes?
Dr. Khanna has spent a quarter century advising the largest and most prestigious institutional investors and asset managers from sovereign wealth funds and pensions to private equity and family offices. His deep and data-rich analysis paints an interdisciplinary picture of key megatrends, confidently forecasting which markets and sectors will outperform in the complex and turbulent years ahead.
America no longer runs the world, nor will a “new Cold War” between the US and China determine global order. Instead, we find ourselves in a hyper-competitive “geopolitical marketplace,” the term Dr. Khanna coined two decades ago to capture how a half-dozen major powers are vying to be the trusted providers of vital services across the military, financial, energy, industrial, technological, infrastructure and other domains. Meanwhile, rather than choose sides, smart countries practice a deft “multi-alignment,” doing business in all directions to get the best deal for themselves.
Based on his pioneering research and extensive experience advising heads of state and global corporations, Dr. Khanna guides you in navigating this complex new global system.
Our species is rapidly reaching “peak humanity.” The global population may cross nine billion people during the 2030s, but many aging societies from Europe to East Asia are already depopulating due to collapsing fertility and low immigration. But most of the world’s people are still young — and as they vote with their feet, they determine the winners and losers of the 21st century. Countries are now vigorously competing in a global war for young talent to attract the taxpayers and homeowners, laborers and caregivers, students and entrepreneurs of the future. Companies must do the same – even though in a remote working world, millennials and Gen-Z are moving targets as they abandon national loyalty in favor of the most affordable and liberal lifestyle.
Dr. Khanna presents the world from the standpoint of the mobile young generation, guiding your talent strategies for the years ahead.
The climate will not adapt to us – we have to adapt to it. Climate disasters are intensifying, with hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and other catastrophes are causing ever greater costs to societies everywhere. Climate refugees now outnumber political and economic migrants, and conflicts over food and water are sparking uncontrolled mass migrations across the continents. Net zero goals are clearly not enough. That is why climate adaptation must be every country and company’s foremost priority. This includes fortifying and redesigning our cities and buildings, accelerating renewable energy, boosting food production, and relocating our businesses, citizens, and workers to more resilient habitats.
Dr. Khanna leverages his access to AlphaGeo’s proprietary software to provide detailed analysis of the locations across the globe best suited to your business requirements, customizing your resilient investment strategy to thrive in the volatile era ahead
With billions of people and trillions of dollars of economic growth generated each year, Asia is the world’s undisputed economic core and strategic cockpit. Most of the world’s population and more than a third of its GDP are contained within this increasingly dense zone of trade and investment agreements. Asia used to produce for the world, now the world produces for Asia. After Japan and China, the next chapter of Asia’s economic story is being written by the “fourth wave” regions of South and Southeast Asia as countries such as India and Vietnam become key destinations for high-tech manufacturing as they capture value chains and lead the world in minting unicorns. Yet navigating Asia’s dizzying diversity of cultures and regulations requires both macro and micro expertise, as well as a keen understanding of current geopolitical tensions.
There is no better guide than Dr. Khanna to the region that is defining the 21st century.
What does it mean to be a worldly person? How should you raise kids with skills necessary for tomorrow’s world? What are the best places to live and retire? Born in India, raised in the UAE, New York and Germany, and having lived in Switzerland, London and Singapore, Dr. Khanna has cultivated a lifestyle as a “citizen of everywhere.”
This approach has yielded profound insights captured in his many books spanning geopolitics, technology, governance and travel – and elevated him to the status of a trusted advisor to many world leaders and corporate figures. Executives will savor this philosophical yet grounded conversation drawing on Parag’s unique life experiences as an adventurous scholar who’s visited more than 150 countries and been compared to Henry Kissinger and Alvin Toffler, and whose worldview presents the essential middle ground between the forces of nationalism and globalism.
Parag Khanna's Latest Books
Move: Where People Are Going for a Better Future
In the 60,000 years since people began colonizing the continents, a recurring feature of human civilization has been mobility—the ever-constant search for resources and stability. Seismic global events—wars and genocides, revolutions and pandemics—have only accelerated the process. The map of humanity isn’t settled—not now, not ever.
As climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilize, and technology disrupts, we’re entering a new age of mass migrations—one that will scatter both the dispossessed and the well-off. Which areas will people abandon and where will they resettle? Which countries will accept or reject them? As today’s world population, which includes four billion restless youth, votes with their feet, what map of human geography will emerge?
The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict and Culture in the 21st Century
In the 19th century, the world was Europeanized. In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, in the 21st century, the world is being irreversibly Asianized.
Dr. Parag Khanna’s latest book The Future is Asian presents this irrepressible global Asianization through detailed analysis, data and maps of Asia’s major markets and their combined impact on global economy, society and governance. With his trademark conceptual clarity and on-the-ground reportage, Khanna provides essential guidance for executives as they look to hedge their China exposure and capture the next big commercial opportunities across Asia from real estate and retail to finance and technology, and attract Asian capital and talent into their operations at home and abroad. With his intimate knowledge of Asian history and geopolitics, he also paints a compelling vision of a balanced global system of shared responsibilities across America, Europe and Asia. Following on the heels of his pioneering trilogy that concluded with the revolutionary Connectography (2016), The Future is Asian will similarly serve as a global strategic roadmap for decades to come.
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