Michael Wills is Executive Vice President at NBR. He manages all aspects of NBR’s financial and business operations, including program and business development and corporate strategic planning and risk management, and serves as secretary to the Board of Directors. He also helps lead the Strategic Asia program and manages NBR’s corporate briefing series on geopolitical risk assessment.

His research expertise includes geopolitics, international security, and the international relations of Asia. He is co-editor with Ashley J. Tellis and most recently Alison Szalwinksi of eleven Strategic Asia volumes—including Reshaping Economic Interdependence in the Indo-Pacific (2023), Navigating Tumultuous Times in the Indo-Pacific (2021–22), U.S.-China Competition for Global Influence (2020), China’s Expanding Strategic Ambitions (2019), Power, Ideas, and Military Strategy in the Asia-Pacific (2017), Understanding Strategic Cultures in the Asia-Pacific (2016), and Foundations of National Power in the Asia-Pacific (2015)—and with Robert M. Hathaway of New Security Challenges in Asia (2013). He is a contributing editor to three other Strategic Asia books and several other edited volumes on Asian security.

Before joining NBR, Mr. Wills worked at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute in Phnom Penh, and prior to that with Control Risks Group, an international political and security risk management firm, in London. He holds a BA (Honors) in Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford.