Michael O’Sullivan

For almost 13 years, Michael O’Sullivan interpreted geopolitical phenomena for global clients as Chief Investment Officer at Credit Suisse. The former academic believes these were the final years of a post-Soviet globalised world. Leaving in 2020, he wrote The Levelling, asking what comes next as that liberal order retreats.

Few speak as cogently on the relationship between the political and financial worlds. O’Sullivan has over 20 years of experience in global financial markets and investment management. Rather than simply comment on trends, he elucidates their impact on markets. Today, various asset managers and fintech companies continue to rely on his advice as he makes sense of a changing world.

O’Sullivan is also a regular writer in shorter form. His weekly blog, also called The Levelling, predicts what’s next in politics, economics and finance. He is also published weekly in Forbes.

Michael O’Sullivan is also the co-author of L’Accord du Peuple, a book on French democracy with the economist Pierre-Charles Pradier. He recently spoke at TEDx on this same topic. His speech in Beflast was entitled Restoring the Credibility of Democracy. With elections in Indonesia, India, the EU, South Africa, Taiwan, Mexico, UK and the US – O’Sullivan emphasises the importance of renewing and restoring democracy by pushing back on those who attack it and curbing the influence of social media.

A brodcaster too, O’Sullivan presented the BBC 4 radio documentary Waking up to World Debt. He asks how a highly indebted world economy could deal with another crisis. O’Sullivan is also working on a new documentary on the ‘AI bubble’ for the same channel.

He is currently Managing Partner at Harvest Innovation Advisory, a senior adviser at WestExec, and a board member of the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation. O’Sullivan studied in Cork and received MPhil and DPhil degrees at Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He has also taught finance and economics at Oxford University and Princeton University.