RANE Podcast Series

Assessing geopolitical risk can appear overwhelming and unmanageable at times. The issues range from broad global patterns of competition, such as the evolving U.S.-China relations, down to local socio-political evolutions that can change regulatory environments in key resource-producing countries. Navigating geopolitical risk and opportunity is a growing field, and increasingly important for businesses and internationally-engaged organizations, not just governments and the military. Thinking in frameworks allows geopolitical analysts to contextualize day-to-day information volatility and identify systemic versus cyclical changes, providing a more stable way of looking at an uncertain future. In this episode of the Applied Geopolitics podcast, Rodger Baker speaks with geopolitical strategist Matt Gertken about methods for assessing geopolitical risk. Matt Gertken is BCA Research’s Chief Strategist, Geopolitical Strategy and US Political Strategy. He oversees the firm’s coverage of market-relevant policy developments across the world. Prior to joining BCA in 2015, Matt worked as a Senior Analyst at Stratfor and in various academic and publishing roles. Matt holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

In this episode of Essential Geopolitics, RANE’s Cyber Analyst Ali Plucinski shares her insights into the direction of Russian cyber operations through the lens of hacktivism and influence operations.    RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

In this episode, RANE co-founder David Lawrence speaks with Lisa Smith about her experiences with addiction, mental health issues, and recovery in the world of New York City corporate law. Lisa Smith is a former practicing lawyer and law firm executive, as well as a writer, speaker, and podcast host. She is the author of Girl Walks Out of a Bar, her memoir of high-functioning addiction and recovery in the world of New York City corporate law. Lisa also co-hosts the Signal Award-winning podcast, Recovery Rocks.  RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

The Financial Times recently ran a story commending Latin American economies for pre-emptively increasing interest rates, even before the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, and taking a fairly upbeat view of the regional outlook, broadly speaking. In this episode of Essential Geopolitics, RANE's Global Economy Analyst Markus Jaeger explains why countries like Brazil and Mexico managed to cope with the COVID crisis and maintain economic stability. RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

On August 23, major news outlets reported that Wagner Group Head Yevgeny Prigozhin was believed to be aboard a flight that crashed in Russia. In this episode of Essential Geopolitics, RANE Eurasia Analyst Matthew Orr discusses everything we know about the plane crash so far and shares his insights into the potential implications for Russia, the Wagner Group, and Belarus. RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

From grain flows through the Black Sea to strategic minerals bottlenecks to strategic competition over advanced semiconductors, supply chain disruptions are often some of the most prominent and attention-grabbing examples of geopolitical risk on business operations. But the impacts are often not quite as attention-grabbing, simply adding more friction to the complexities of global trade. At the center of it all sits the global shipping industry, the connective tissue of global trade and commerce. It is there that one set of risks can add reverberating and compounding impacts across seemingly unconnected sectors or even geographies. In this episode of the Applied Geopolitics podcast, Rodger Baker, the director of the Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, speaks with Mr. Punit Oza about some of the ways geopolitical risk impacts the global shipping industry. Mr. Punit Oza is a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore Academy and an Affiliated Research Fellow & Guest Lecturer at Singapore Management University, where he lectures on Geopolitical risks & their impact on shipping & trade flows. Mr. Oza has more than 30 years of experience in Dry Bulk Shipping, and now heads his own company, Maritime NXT, Singapore, focused on the developments in the maritime space. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers and currently the Vice Chairman of the Singapore Branch of the Institute. RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

On July 25, China replaced recently appointed Foreign Minister Qin Gang with CCP Foreign Policy Chief Wang Yi. This followed Qin’s one-month absence from the public eye, leading many foreign analysts to speculate about the reasons for the shake-up and its impacts for China’s relations with the world. In this episode of Essential Geopolitics, RANE’s Asia Pacific Analyst Chase Blazek walks us through the events leading up to Qin’s absence and the potential impact this will have on China’s relations with the world.  RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

In this episode, David Lawrence, co-founder of RANE, speaks with Teague Egan about the work his company is doing in the lithium industry. Teague is the Founder and CEO at EnergyX, a clean energy tech company that’s developing efficient and sustainable technology to aid the extraction and production process for lithium. Teague is a serial entrepreneur, and has previously started businesses in entertainment. He is also the inventor of EnergyDNA – a patented multi-component graphene textile fiber technology.  RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.  

One of the strengths of geopolitical analysis is the ability to move above the fray of current politics. As a tool of assessment, geopolitics often works best in assessing strategic balances, drivers, and constraints. But while nations are often the discussed unit of action, reality requires us to understand and input the role of decision-makers, organizations, and institutions into the calculations, particularly in shorter time frames or narrower geographic scopes. In this more focused approach, we can consider two simultaneous ideas - “objective” geopolitics, and perspective geopolitics. Actions will be driven more often not by what is, but by what is perceived. The results, however, are much more influenced by what is, than by what one wishes. In this episode of the Applied Geopolitics podcast, Rodger Baker, the director of the Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, speaks with Dr. Kenneth Dekleva about his work in leadership analysis and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Kenneth Dekleva is a practicing psychiatrist and Senior Fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.  From 2002 to 2016, he served as a senior U.S. diplomat and regional medical officer/psychiatrist with the U.S. Department of State, mostly overseas, but also in a leadership role (from 2013 to 2015) as director of the U.S. State Department’s worldwide diplomatic mental health program, providing mental health support to 60,000 U.S. diplomats and family members based overseas and in the United States. He has published widely in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, The Hill, The Cipher Brief, 38 North and The Diplomat, and has given numerous presentations in academic, private sector, and U.S. government settings in the field of leadership analysis, including profiles of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. He has also given media interviews to CNN, National Public Radio, Intelligence Matters, and Background Briefing. RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.

In this episode of Beyond COVID, our experts analyze recent COVID numbers and compare the virus to other existing coronaviruses.  Dr. Fred Southwick is an infectious disease specialist at the University of Florida's College of Medicine, and Dr. Bill Lang is an expert in public health responses to biological incidents. Our host, David Lawrence, is the founder of RANE. RANE is a global risk intelligence company that delivers risk and security professionals access to critical insights, analysis and support to ensure business continuity and resilience for our clients. For more information about RANE's risk management solutions, visit www.ranenetwork.com.