Afshin Molavi is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute and founder of the Emerging World Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC, where he writes, researches and speaks broadly on the key global trends shaping our world.
Over a career spanning nearly three decades, Molavi has worked as a journalist, geopolitical risk analyst, think tank fellow, professor, executive education leader, syndicated columnist, development bank staffer, award-winning filmmaker, and advisor to companies worldwide. He has lived in and worked and traveled to dozens of countries across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Today, Molavi is a regular keynote speaker for institutional investor conferences and trade associations (see – www.afshinmolavi.com ), where he speaks on themes related to global megatrends, national competitiveness, innovation, and the deeper tectonic shifts shaping our world. In addition, he is a Senior Adjunct Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank.
Molavi has also worked as a senior global advisor at Oxford Analytica, a global macro advisory and analysis firm, and co-founder of the World Economy Roundtable, where he convened conversations around the key geo-economic themes shaping the world. During this time, he was also appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Molavi has also worked on the staff of the International Finance Corporation, the private sector development arm of the World Bank Group, and has served fellowships with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, among others.
Molavi writes regular columns for Forbes, and his dispatches and essays have been published in The New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Smithsonian, Newsweek, Businessweek, Journal of Commerce, National Geographic, and dozens of academic and specialty publications.
He believes profoundly in the power of travel, still reads (and collects) physical newspapers and magazines, plays competitive tennis and basketball (or so he thinks), and harbours nostalgia for eras he never knew.
Talking Points
The New Centers of Gravity
Just as the Industrial Revolution shifted the world’s centre of gravity to Europe, and the post-war boom elevated the United States to unmatched power, today we are living through another epochal transformation. The balance of economic dynamism is expanding toward what Afshin Molavi calls the “85 World”—the 85% of humanity in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.The New Centers of Gravity
As a global strategist, Molavi takes audiences on a fast-paced journey through these emerging centers of gravity. He explores Asia’s manufacturing might and digital innovation, Africa’s demographic surge and consumer growth, the Middle East’s energy transformation and capital flows, and Latin America’s expanding middle classes. These stories are not peripheral—they are the engines of the global order now taking shape.
Molavi goes beyond the familiar narratives of U.S.–China rivalry to highlight new alliances, trade corridors, and digital networks connecting the Global South in ways unseen before. He shows how businesses, investors, and policymakers everywhere must adapt to a world where opportunity and power are not concentrated in the traditional West, but distributed across a wider map.
Audiences leave with a sharper understanding of how these new centres of gravity are reshaping our world—and with the insights needed to navigate uncertainty and seize opportunity in the century ahead.
The Future is Flow: How Trade, Technology, and Talent Are Redrawing the Global Map
Most headlines focus on the drama of crises. The real story lies beneath: the steady, unstoppable flows of trade, capital, technology, energy, and people. Afshin Molavi takes audiences across shipping lanes, fiber-optic cables, and migration routes to reveal the quiet forces that move markets, build cities, and redraw maps.The Future is Flow: How Trade, Technology, and Talent Are Redrawing the Global Map
From Dubai to Dallas, Shanghai to Miami, and Lagos to London, he shows how these flows are forging new centers of influence—how a supply chain adjustment in Asia reshapes industries in Europe, how Africa’s rising youth population is tomorrow’s consumer engine, and how digital connections everywhere are rewiring politics and business alike.
Rather than chasing volatility, Molavi highlights the underlying currents shaping the century ahead—and why those who learn to follow the flows will be the ones who thrive.
The Five Disruption-Proof Trends Shaping Our World
The 21st century is being built on bedrock—forces so deep and immovable that they outlast any election cycle, recession, or trade war. Afshin Molavi takes audiences on a journey across this bedrock, exploring five powerful shifts: urbanization, expanding middle classes, demographic surges, accelerating technology, and the spread of global connectivity.The Five Disruption-Proof Trends Shaping Our World
Through vivid examples from across continents, he shows how these forces bend the future more forcefully than daily politics or market noise. They are not immune to turbulence, but they are the tectonic plates on which turbulence plays out.
Audiences leave with a sharper sense of which trends truly matter, and how to build strategies that rest on foundations, not forecasts.
The World in Your Pocket: How Global Forces Shape Our Daily Lives
The world hides in plain sight—in your coffee cup, in the chip inside your phone, in the label stitched into your shirt. Afshin Molavi calls this “everyday globalization”: the vast but invisible web of supply chains, labor, technology, and trade that shapes our routines without us even noticing.The World in Your Pocket: How Global Forces Shape Our Daily Lives
He takes audiences behind the curtain of the ordinary, tracing how beans from Ethiopia reach your cup, how rare earths mined in Africa power your phone, and how factories in Vietnam or Mexico stitch your wardrobe. These are not distant abstractions; they are the connective tissue of daily life.
By making the invisible visible, Molavi helps audiences see the world differently: not as far-off and fragmented, but as compressed and interwoven—and why those who understand these ties are better equipped to navigate both risk and opportunity.
Geopolitics of Opportunity: Finding Growth in a Fractured World
Most conversations about geopolitics dwell on the dangers: wars, rivalries, and volatility. Afshin Molavi flips the lens to focus on the other side of the story—the opportunities that emerge when the world is being reshaped.Geopolitics of Opportunity: Finding Growth in a Fractured World
From the rise of new trade corridors linking Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, to breakthroughs in green energy and digital infrastructure, geopolitics is not only about obstacles but also about openings. Molavi shows how demographic surges are creating tomorrow’s consumer markets, how shifting supply chains are forging new investment hubs, and how emerging alliances are expanding connectivity across continents.
Drawing on decades of global experience, Molavi highlights the regions and sectors where opportunity grows out of transition. He equips audiences with a forward-looking playbook: how to identify opportunities amid turbulence, how to engage with rising powers and new markets, and how to turn uncertainty into advantage.
Audiences leave with a renewed sense of agency and the understanding that geopolitics is not just something to brace against, but a landscape where growth, innovation, and partnerships can flourish.
