Misha Glenny

Short Biography

Misha Glenny is an award-winning journalist, author, and public intellectual. He assumed the role of IWM rector in May 2022. A former BBC Central Europe Correspondent who covered the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the wars in the former Yugoslavia, he is a sought-after keynote speaker on the geopolitics of cybersecurity and organized crime. His best-selling non-fiction book McMafia (Bodley Head, 2008), about the globalization of organized crime, was adapted into a major TV drama series on BBC1 and AMC. 

Glenny is also the author of an acclaimed single-volume history of the modern Balkans. An alumnus of the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. and the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, he has taught as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, Columbia University and University College London. He has contributed to The Financial Times, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and newspapers, magazines, and academic journals around the world.

Areas of Expertise

• Geopolitics
• Nationalism
• Media Policy
• Central Europe
• Organized Crime
• Cybersecurity
• The Balkans

Selected Publications

The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy (Penguin, 1991) 

The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (Penguin, 1992) 

The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804–1999 (Granta Books, 1999)

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Bodley Head, 2008) 

DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You (Bodley Head, 2011) 

Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio (Bodley Head, 2015)