experts
Sven Behrendt
Visiting Scholar, Middle East Center

about


Sven Behrendt is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.

Sven Behrendt was a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center. He is a specialist in corporate strategy and political risk management and has a profound understanding of the forces that are at the base of the rapid transformations of the world’s political and economic systems. Most recently, he focused his attention on Sovereign Wealth Funds from emerging economies as agents of change in global finance and in the broader context of the shifting power equation in the global economy.

Before his appointment, he served at the World Economic Forum in various management positions, making a substantial contribution turning the Forum into a global knowledge-based multi-stakeholder platform. Most recently he headed the Forum’s mining and metals industry practice, working together with industry leaders on a joint global agenda for the extractive sector.

Prior to his assignment at the World Economic Forum, he was Research Fellow at the Bertelsmann Foundation’s policy think tank, the Bertelsmann Group on Policy Research, where he facilitated political dialogue between European and the Middle Eastern policy makers, resulting in numerous diplomatic breakthroughs.

Behrendt is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Selected publications:
Europe and the Middle East: Bound to Cooperate (with Christian-Peter Hanelt, Guetersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation, 2000); The Secret Israeli-Palestinian Talks in Oslo: Their Success and Why the Process Ultimately Failed (London: Routledge, 2007); “The Statecraft of Business,” in Strategy and Business (2007).


education
Masters, Politics and Management; Ph.D., International Affairs, University of Konstanz, Germany.
languages
English, French, German

All work from Sven Behrendt

filters
23 Results
In the Media
A Lebanon Fund: What We Should Know

The possibility that Lebanon might benefit from exploiting massive off-shore natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean has provoked a debate about establishing a sovereign wealth fund to manage the accumulated revenues.

· July 26, 2010
The Daily Star
In the Media
Beyond Oil: Global Energy Security & Sovereign Wealth Funds

The uneasy yet robust energy supply and demand relationship linking the industrialized economies of the West and the oil producers of the Gulf region may be changing as both parties seek to distance themselves from what they perceive as an unhealthy dependence on oil.

· July 26, 2010
Journal of Energy Security
In the Media
For the G20, the Glass Is Half Full

The G20 still has far to go in terms of reforming the global financial system and calming the lingering economic turmoil, but the experience of sovereign wealth funds provides a useful outline for what is possible.

· June 23, 2010
RealClearMarkets
paper
Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Santiago Principles: Where Do They Stand?

The Santiago Principles and the commitment of their sponsors—some of the biggest sovereign wealth funds—are an important test for the viability of new forms of global governance.

· May 5, 2010
In the Media
Beyond Santiago: Status and Prospects

Implementation of the Santiago Principles is highly uneven and there is still far to go if sovereign wealth funds are to be responsible members of the global economy.

· May 3, 2010
Central Banking
In the Media
Arab Sovereign Wealth Funds

Not only have Sovereign Wealth Funds become a contentious issue for Western policy makers, but their risk/return profile should also be of major concern for the Arab public, since the future economic well-being of Arab societies is at stake.

· April 8, 2010
Executive Magazine
article
Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Governance Challenge

Though sovereign wealth funds, valued at $2.4 trillion globally, played a stabilizing role during the crisis, their widely varying governance standards may pose geopolitical risks in the future.

· January 21, 2010
event
Sovereign Wealth Funds: From Dubai to Oslo, Politics Meets Business
December 9, 2009

Since the start of the financial crisis, questions about sovereign wealth funds, which had $3.9 trillion in assets in 2008, have been at the forefront of discussions regarding financial stability and global politics.

  • +1
article
The G20 and Saudi Arabia’s Changing Foreign Policy Agenda

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the Saudis cannot be comforted to know that their economic fortunes are so closely related to events beyond their borders. The Saudi leadership will look to the G20 process to help make these markets less volatile and easier to navigate.

· September 21, 2009
REQUIRED IMAGE
In the Media
Why Qatar's Investment in Porsche Matters

Policy makers who only 18 months ago identified Arab foreign investment as a major threat to national security and economic competitiveness are now actively reaching out to them.

· July 24, 2009
CNN's Marketplace Middle East July 24