Robin Niblett is a Distinguished Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London, where he was the Director and Chief Executive for 15 years (2007–2022).
He is also Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute and Senior Adviser to the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, where he served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (2001–2006), overseeing all research and operations.
A leading expert on the relations between Europe, the US, and Asia, he is the author of The New Cold War: How the Contest Between the US and China Will Shape Our Century (Atlantic Books, 2024).
Alongside his policy work, Robin is the Director of Ledwell Advisory, offering insights into geopolitical trends and their implications for risk management by private institutions across the world. He serves on the International Advisory Board of Brown Advisory, the US investment firm, and was Senior Adviser for geopolitics and international affairs with Hakluyt, the London-based strategic advisory firm, from 2022 through 2024. From 2010 to 2020, he was a Non-Executive Director of Fidelity European Values Investment Trust.
Currently a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Geopolitics and its Co-Chair (2020–2022), Robin has served as Chair and member of other WEF Councils since 2012. He was a member of the UK FCDO’s Expert Group (2019–2022), Special Adviser to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2015–2017), and Chairman of the Experts Group for the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales. While at CSIS, he also directed the CSIS Europe Programme and its Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership.
The author of numerous Chatham House and CSIS reports on European, British, and US foreign policy, his commentary and analysis have appeared in the world’s leading journals and newspapers, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Times, and The Guardian. He is a regular commentator on Bloomberg and CNN International and a speaker at major international conferences; he has testified to committees of the House of Commons and US Congress.
Robin was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022 Birthday Honours for services to international relations and British foreign policy, and CMG in the 2015 New Year’s Honours.
He received his MPhil and DPhil in International Relations from New College, Oxford.