Manager

Overview

Role Summary

Key Responsibilities

• Lead analytical workstreams within client engagements, producing strategic briefs, bilateral partnership strategies, regional strategies, doctrine papers, scenario analyses, and policy assessments to a standard suitable for minister-level audiences
• Conduct structured geopolitical analysis using frameworks such as driver-constraint-balance assessments, actor-level analysis, and scenario construction to generate sharp, non-obvious insights aligned to client priorities
• Draft and deliver high-quality written outputs — executive summaries, strategic assessments, institutional positioning papers, and rapid-reaction briefs — with strong narrative architecture, analytical density, and clear bottom-line judgements
• Engage directly with client counterparts to understand requirements, present findings, and build trusted advisory relationships with senior government officials
• Contribute to scenario exercises, tabletop crisis simulations, and red team assessments, including preparation of scenario materials, facilitation support, and synthesis of findings
• Support business development activities, including scoping new advisory opportunities, developing proposals for prospective government clients, and contributing to thought leadership that strengthens the practice's profile
• Monitor and analyse geopolitical developments — producing rapid strategic assessments when events break and maintaining situational awareness across the practice's priority regions and issues
• Collaborate across TBI's broader platform, connecting geopolitical analysis to the Institute's strategy, policy, delivery, and technology workstreams where relevant to client needs

Person Specification

Professional Background

• Foreign policy or national security: Experience in a head-of-government office, national security council, or foreign ministry in a policy-shaping role — such as a policy planning unit, bilateral desk, or multilateral negotiation team.

Experience

• within a G20 government or a regional leader country would be an advantage.
• Intelligence analysis: Experience as an analyst in a national intelligence agency, ideally in a regional analysis, strategic assessment, or all-source intelligence role, with exposure to producing analytical products for senior policymaker consumption.
• Political risk or geopolitical advisory: Experience at a recognised political risk or geopolitical advisory firm, with a track record of leading analytical workstreams, producing client-facing deliverables, and presenting to senior government or C-suite audiences.
• Policy-oriented academic research: A PhD in international relations, security studies, political science, political economy, or area studies, with a dissertation on a policy-relevant topic and demonstrable experience producing analysis for non-academic audiences — through think tank fellowships, policy publications, or government briefings.

Academic Background

• Master's degree in international relations, public policy, security studies, political science, political economy, international law, or area studies — or a PhD in a relevant discipline
• Bachelor's degree in politics, economics, history, international studies, law, languages, or a relevant discipline
• Proficiency in a strategically relevant language — Arabic, Farsi, Mandarin or French — is a significant advantage

Skills & Competencies

• Exceptional analytical capability: ability to process complex geopolitical information, generate original insights, and produce structured, judgement-driven assessments that separate signal from noise
• Outstanding written communication: ability to produce concise, analytically dense prose calibrated for minister-level audiences — not academic papers, not journalistic commentary, but strategic advisory documents with clear bottom-line assessments
• Structured problem-solving: comfort with hypothesis-driven analysis, scenario construction, and frameworks that move from description to interpretation to strategic implication
• Client-facing confidence: ability to engage with senior government officials, present findings clearly, and build trusted advisory relationships
• Project management discipline: ability to manage workstreams, meet deadlines, and produce at pace without sacrificing analytical quality
• Intellectual curiosity and range: willingness to work across multiple regions and thematic areas rather than operating as a single-issue or single-country specialist
• A proactive, entrepreneurial mindset: comfortable taking ownership, identifying where to add value, and operating with a high degree of autonomy
• Team orientation: genuine motivation for colleagues' performance, growth, and wellbeing, with a collaborative approach to problem-solving