Today marks the last day of Misha Glenny's term as IWM rector. After almost four years at the Institute's helm, Glenny will devote himself to his new role as presenter of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.
On 20 March, colleagues and friends gathered in the Institute's library for a farewell reception. Former Federal President of Austria and IWM President Heinz Fischer delivered the evening's first address, followed by Vienna's Executive City Councillor for Cultural Affairs and Science, Veronika Kaup-Hasler, and Glenny himself. Katharina Gratz, the IWM librarian, and IWM Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev concluded the evening’s round of speeches.
On 1 April, Ivan Krastev will assume the role of rector ad interim until a new rector takes office. The IWM is still accepting applications for the rectorship until 30 April 2026.
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Misha Glenny is an award-winning journalist, author, and public intellectual. He served as IWM rector from May 2022 to March 2026. 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.
Photos: Klaus Ranger
