Damien Ma founded Macro Polo, the Paulson Institute’s think tank, where he was until recently its Managing Director. He is adjunct faculty at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and serves as a senior advisor at Aurora Macro Strategies, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm.
Damien is the author or editor of the books In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China’s Ascent in the Next Decade (Pearson), The Economics of Air Pollution in China (Columbia University Press), and China’s Economic Arrival: Decoding a Disruptive Rise (Palgrave Macmillan).
Previously, Damien helped build and lead the China practice at Eurasia Group, the leading political risk research and advisory firm. At EG, he focused on China and East Asian markets, covering areas spanning energy and commodities to elite politics and US-China relations. He also led work on Mongolian politics and its mining sector. His advisory and analytical work served a range of clients from institutional investors and multinationals to the US, Japanese, Singaporean, and Australian governments.
Prior to joining Eurasia Group, he managed and edited the flagship magazine of the US-China Business Council in Washington, DC, where he was also an adjunct instructor at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Earlier in his career, he worked at public relations firm H-Line Ogilvy in Beijing, where he worked with multinational clients.
In addition, Damien has published widely, including in The Atlantic, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg, among others. He has also appeared in a range of broadcast media such as the Charlie Rose Show, BBC, NPR, and CNBC. Damien has also keynoted or spoken at various industry, investor, and academic conferences, including CLSA, Credit Suisse Latin America, and Banco Bradesco.
Damien was previously a “99under33” foreign policy leader by the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. He speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.