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Charles Hecker an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI, London) and author of the 2024 book Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia, published in Europe by Hurst Publishers and in the US by Oxford University Press. Zero Sum was named a “Best of Books 2025” by Foreign Affairs magazine and is a New York Times Editors’ Choice.
Prior to writing Zero Sum, Charles was a partner at Control Risks, the international, specialist risk consultancy and for eight years was the managing partner of the firm’s Moscow office. He was later a co-head of Control Risks’ geopolitical risk consulting practice.
Charles has a BA in Russian and Soviet Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA from the Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) at Harvard
University. He is a member of the Davis Center’s Advisory Board and has a similar role at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at UCL.
Biography
Charles Hecker has spent forty years travelling and working in the Soviet Union and Russia. He has worked as a journalist at The Miami Herald and The Moscow Times, and as a geopolitical risk consultant at Control Risks, where he was a partner in the firm.
While at Control Risks, Charles helped dozens of leading, international companies invest safely in Russia and manage the dynamic array of risks the country presented as it developed as a market. From 2000 to 2008, he was the managing partner of Control Risks' Moscow office.
He is a regular contributor to Monocle Radio and has offered expert commentary on Times Radio, CNN, the BBC, CNBC and Bloomberg TV, among others.
A fluent Russian speaker, he holds an undergraduate degree in Russian and Soviet Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree from the Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) at Harvard University. He serves on the advisory boards of UCL's SSEES, and Harvard's Davis Center.
Charles is also an Associate Fellow in the International Security Research Group at RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute in London. He currently resides in East London. If you would like a copy of Charles' professional CV, please use the request form further below.
Photo: Larissa Kouznetsova
An independent publisher since 1969
Zero Sum is part of Hurst's New Perspectives on Eastern Europe and Eurasia series, edited by Dr. Ben Noble of UCL.
Zero Sum is published in the US by Oxford University Press.
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