Damien Ma

Damien Ma is the founder of MacroPolo, the Paulson Institute’s think tank, where he currently serves as its Managing Director. He is the author or editor of the books, In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China’s Ascent in the Next Decade, The Economics of Air Pollution in China (by Ma Jun), and China’s Economic Arrival: Decoding a Disruptive Rise, published by Palgrave Macmillan. He is also adjunct faculty at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Previously, Damien was a Senior Analyst at Eurasia Group, the political risk research and advisory firm. At EG, he mainly focused on the China and East Asian markets, covering areas that spanned energy and commodities and industrial policy to elite politics and US-China relations. He also led work on analyzing Mongolian politics and its mining sector. His advisory and analytical work served a range of clients from institutional investors and multinationals to the US, Japanese, and Singaporean governments.

Prior to joining Eurasia Group, he was a manager of publications at the US-China Business Council in Washington, DC, where he was also an adjunct instructor at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Early in his career, he worked at public relations firm H-Line Ogilvy in Beijing, where he served multinational clients.

In addition, Damien has published widely, including in The Atlantic, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg, among others. He has also appeared in a range of broadcast media such as the Charlie Rose Show, BBC, NPR, and CNBC. In addition to media appearances, Damien has keynoted or spoken at various industry, investor, and academic conferences, including CLSA and Credit Suisse Latin America.

Damien was named a “99under33” foreign policy leader by the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. He speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.