Jakob Hensing

Jakob Hensing is a research fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, where he contributes to the institute’s work on peace and security and the changing global order. His interests focus on the intersection of politics, security and economic issues, including the role of economic factors in violent crises and stabilization efforts, state-business relations in democratic and authoritarian political orders, and economic coercion in international politics.

Having worked at GPPi as a research associate in 2011, Jakob has returned to the institute after a decade of moving between management consulting and academia. His consulting experience comprises more than five years working at McKinsey & Company and at Orphoz Public, McKinsey’s dedicated public sector branch in Germany. In addition to his client work, which focused on organizational and operating model transformations across industries and on strategic and organizational aspects of digital government, Jakob contributed to two major projects on the future of the European economy at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). Before joining McKinsey, he interned with the German Federal Foreign Office’s unit for civilian crisis prevention and volunteered with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Damascus, Syria. He was also part of the founding team of d|part, a think tank on political participation.

Jakob earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford, where his dissertation focused on the politics of post-conflict economic reconstruction in Angola and Mozambique. He holds an MPhil in international relations, also from Oxford, as well as a bachelor’s degree in integrated social sciences from Jacobs University Bremen. Jakob’s studies were supported by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation.