In this feature, we examine how international affairs, or geopolitics to put it another way, is a topic that wealth managers, bankers and others must grasp to get the most value for their clients and their own businesses.

Being able to understand national and international politics might not have been a core aptitude for private bankers and wealth managers at one time, but it is becoming increasingly important.

And can comprehending how economics and politics intersect give wealth managers an edge? In other words, is there “Alpha” available from grasping the topic?

There have been plenty of disturbances to suggest that the answer to these questions is a “yes.” Even before the unashamedly disruptive 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump, entered the White House for his second term last year, the days when people talked of “The End of History” and the irresistible march of liberal capitalism seemed a distant, hubristic memory. The geopolitical drumbeat became louder after 9/11. The 2008 financial crisis cranked up the volume, and it has seldom declined. Some of the most recent stresses can be seen by the gyrations in the price of gold, for example – a classic "safe-haven" asset.

The 2020s have been hectic: the pandemic; Russia/Ukraine; Israel/Gaza; West-China trade frictions; Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs (and subsequent row back); Trump’s demands to take ownership of Greenland; the US arrest and removal from Venezuela of President Maduro; civil unrest/crackdowns in Iran; populist politics on the rise in Europe; calls for taxes on the “1 per cent”; the rise of AI, and worries about Taiwan. It has been relentless.

Against this fraught background, banks are spending money to unlock value from geopolitical insights. There is now a concept of “geopolitical alpha.” In March 2022, the US Federal Reserve even published a paper, Measuring Geopolitical Risk. The document contained the sobering message: “Higher geopolitical risk foreshadows lower investment and is associated with higher disaster probability and larger downside risks to GDP growth.”

Intellectual firepower
For JP Morgan, the largest US bank by assets, the world of international affairs loomed large enough for it to set up the JPMorganChase Center for Geopolitics (CfG), a client advisory service. It is led by Derek Chollet, a foreign policy expert who knows his way around Washington DC. He has held senior positions in the Pentagon, State Department, White House, Congress, and several research institutions. JP Morgan takes insights from experts across the bank, the firm’s International Council, and others externally including the 66th US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan.

Another firm, Lazard, has a unit – Lazard Geopolitical Advisory – which, as the name suggests, concentrates on the topic. A few weeks ago, the firm issued its Top Geopolitical Trends In 2026 report, talking about a “New Economic Nationalism” in the US, “EU and China On A Collision Course”, and “Shifting Political and Diplomatic Tides in Latin America,” among others. 

One question that arises is what sort of education those working in the industry need to have to be aware of the issues. 

London School of Economics
This news service asked Dr Silvia Pepino, visiting senior fellow at the International Relations Department at the London School of Economics, about her academic discipline and how it might affect those in the financial world. 

“There are two major ways I see geopolitics expertise becoming more in demand in the financial and corporate sectors,” she said. “First, explicitly, as we have seen the creation of dedicated teams and positions such as chief geopolitical strategist or chief geopolitical officer. Second, implicitly, as geopolitical risks are increasingly embedded in major strategic and risk considerations, making it an essential tool for a wide range of professionals from the analyst to the asset manager to the CEO.”

Two examples of chief geopolitical strategists are Miha Hribernik, who is focused on Asia in that role at Deutsche Bank and based in Hong Kong. Another example is Marko Papic of Clocktower Group. Papic even published a book in 2020 entitled Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future. 

Take the plunge
Dr Pepino says people in banking and finance or interested in working in the sector should consider courses in international relations. 

“I would strongly encourage it. There are a variety of options for differing career stages, commitment levels and specificity of interests. They provide increasingly essential tools to understand the world we live in, as well as to make sounder financial, business and policy decisions,” she said. 

A number of universities teach the subject, as a quick search unearths names such as Harvard, Stanford and George Washington University in the US, Oxford and LSE in the UK, Sciences Po or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies, in France; and the The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) at the National University of Singapore. These are just some of those who teach the topic at graduate and post-graduate level.

Dr Pepino is the author of Sovereign Risk and Financial Crisis, published in 2015. 

“My research is specifically focused on how international and domestic political and political economy factors impact financial markets. Using language more commonly found in the popular and financial market discourse, I look at how geopolitics, geoeconomics and politics interact with financial markets,” she said. “My specific angle derives from both having gained my PhD in International Political Economy of Money and Finance at LSE’s International Relations Department and having worked for two decades in the City of London, in the sell-side, buy-side, and central banking."

Until about a decade ago, Dr Pepino said that the “general consensus had been that political factors mattered for financial markets fluctuations in emerging markets, but advanced democracies’ bond markets were generally understood to be broadly immune.”

(Editor's note: Well, that’s certainly changed. Bonds aren't immune any longer. As if the prove the point this morning, Japan prime minister Sanae Takaichi achieved a landslide election win: the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Innovation Party won 352 seats in the 465-member lower house. The premier has promised more fiscal expansion and borrowing – not great news for bond market investors.)

Dr Pepino noted that she has also obtained the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, a collaboration between LSE, NYU-Stern and HEC Paris. This is a global MBA for senior executives that holds classes across the three partner universities. Dr Pepino said TRIUM was the first MBA to integrate geopolitics as a core subject of global leadership training. In 2026, TRIUM marks its 25th anniversary, “against the backdrop of global developments that strongly validate its pioneering approach,” she said.

When to block it out
There’s a lot of political noise. That may mean that wealth managers must be more attuned to the issues that can affect their clients’ wealth and know enough to be sure when to block out the din.

In talking to wealth managers and seeing their views in print, it seems that a common point of agreement is that political uncertainties cannot be an excuse for sitting on the sidelines in cash. The wonders of compound returns can all too easily be ignored if people are fixated on politics.

“From our vantage point, the lesson from recent years appears to be that stepping away from investment markets is unlikely to be the correct response to a geopolitical crisis,” Joe Aylott, multi-asset strategist at Coutts, the UK private bank, said in a recent note. “Instead, staying invested for the long term, in well-diversified portfolios, could be the most effective way to navigate near-term uncertainty and compound long-term financial returns.”

An understanding of how markets can be moved by unfolding political trends can also be a reminder of the benefits of active, as opposed to passive, money management. That’s the take of David Roberts, co-portfolio manager (Global Strategic Bond Fund) at Nedgroup Investments.

A person who started managing money in their mid-20s in the GFC will now be in their early 40s, Roberts told a media briefing in London attended by WealthBriefing. “They’ve only experienced good times” [in fixed income markets], he said. This age cohort has seen central banks bail out banks in trouble. 

“There is an advantage for those who understand variances in local and international political interactions. There is inter-market dispersion and if you are on the right side then it gives you fantastic opportunities,” he said. The monetary policies of Japan, for example, differ from those of the West. The Asian nation is moving away from its ultra-low rates that endured for years, while others have (mostly cut) after the post-Covid hikes. 

Top of mind
Geopolitics clearly is top of mind for many. In its 10 September 2025 Family Office Investment Insights Report, Goldman Sachs found that 61 per cent of respondents cited geopolitical conflict as the greatest investment risk, followed by political instability (39 per cent) and economic recession (38 per cent). The annual Global Family Office Report 2025, released by UBS on 21 May, showed that geopolitics was a major concern; Citi Wealth, in its 2025 Global Family Office Report, issued in September, noted: “Global trade disputes emerged as a top concern (60 per cent) for family offices, followed by US-China relations (43 per cent) and a resurgence of inflation (37 per cent). Geopolitical tensions and government initiatives to attract capital are fuelling interest in asset location and a re-evaluation of jurisdictions.”

Family offices should take geopolitics seriously, argues Ocorian, a specialist in asset servicing for private and corporate markets as well as fiduciary administration services. And it makes sense that this firm should argue such a point, because as discussed here, HNW and ultra-HNW individuals who are highly mobile are also likely to pay heed to where they’re safest from bad political developments. 

“This question reflects a widespread and growing concern in the family office sector,” Ocorian said in a note on 5 August last year. “Surveys such as those conducted by BlackRock reveal that geopolitical uncertainty is the leading worry for family offices, shaping their capital allocation decisions in a profound way. 84 per cent of family offices cite the geopolitical landscape as increasingly critical paired with 64 per cent looking to increase portfolio diversification in the current outlook.”

The executive search perspective
From the executive search point of view, an understanding of how complex the world can be – including the political and cultural aspects – is important. Nick Hughes, an executive search specialist of 25 years’ experience, with a career that has seen him work in London, Singapore, Gibraltar and Switzerland, has his own perspective.

It is important for bankers/relationship managers and others who envisage a career abroad – for example, in wealth hotspots such as the UAE and Switzerland – to be realistic. They must understand the need to grasp the local culture, consider the need to learn languages, if necessary (Arabic, etc), understand the costs of living and the time it will take to develop revenues and build trust in a different culture, Hughes told WealthBriefing.

“As far as geopolitics is concerned, the movement of wealth to new places means professionals must be alive to the challenges of doing business in new places,” Hughes told WealthBriefing. 

A realistic grasp of the world as it is, not how it might appear in glossy magazines, is all a part of the approach that Hughes stresses.

“Many bankers that I talk to say `I would like to relocate to the Middle East, are there roles available?’” he said. “Many of them don’t have the expertise. And it is not a free-for-all market where companies are hiring indiscriminately.”

For those seeking US roles, “you have to be mindful that it can be complicated to place international hires because of the challenges of gaining work visas, it is expensive and the local market needs to be explored first,” Hughes said. “Firms are only going to hire bankers and RMs if they have a strong business case"…firms are “ultra-selective of whom they hire…you see fewer banks stating that they will hire hundreds of new bankers year-on-year anymore. Their forecasts are certainly more conservative,” he said.

Geopolitics is nothing new, but maybe the sheer volume of news today and the fragmentation of traditional politics has given the topic new salience, and those working in the wealth industry – analysts, RMs or C-suite leaders – can’t ignore it. 

(As ever, if you value this content and want to jump into the conversation, please get in touch with the editor at tom.burroughes@wealthbriefing.com)