Co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), the first pan-European think tank, focusing on geopolitics, geoeconomics, EU institutions, and China.
His public service and advisory roles include appointments to the Soft Power Council and the Foreign Secretary’s External Foreign Policy Board. He hosts the weekly podcast Mark Leonard’s World in 30 Minutes and writes a syndicated column on global affairs for Project Syndicate. Earlier in his career, he served as director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, founded the Foreign Policy Centre, and worked at Demos. He has held research appointments as a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, the Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress, and a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
He is the author of several books translated globally, including Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, What Does China Think?, and The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict. His commentary appears regularly in Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, The New York Times, Le Monde, El País, and The Economist.