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.