I am a political economist researching the changing dynamics of financial globalisation and its impact on the global norms, institutions and governance that underpin the global economy. My main focus is thereby China’s economic rise and other post-crisis transformation of the global financial system. I studied political science, economics, comparative public policy and international political economy. Between my studies and starting a PhD, I worked in finance for two years to obtain more practical knowledge about financial markets. Applying these insights, my research focuses on the infrastructural arrangements enable the functioning of financial markets. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Principal Investigator of the DFG-funded StateCapFinance research project. 

Previously, I was an IRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the SCRIPTS Centre of Excellence, Lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin as well as an ESRC Doctoral Research Fellow and PhD Candidate in International Political Economy at the University of Warwick. In my PhD research, I research the development of Chinese capital markets and their integration into global finance and focus on the role (stock and derivative) exchanges play as crucial actors in processes of capital market development. While they share some characteristics with ‘global’ capital markets, Chinese capital markets function quite differently because China’s state-owned exchanges facilitate the development of capital markets that follow an institutional logic of and are embedded in China’s state capitalism. Instead of following a neoliberal rulebook, the exchanges facilitate the state’s ability to control capital markets and to direct market outcomes towards certain state policies, both within China and internationally. These findings have important implications for political economy debates on the transformation of China’s capitalism, its integration into the Global Financial Order, trajectories of financialisation as well as the politics of infrastructures in global finance. My research draws on extensive fieldwork in Beijing, Dalian, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Singapore, Frankfurt and London where I conducted 130+ expert interviews and gained ethnographic insights from attending 30+ financial industry events. In addition, my work also draws on statistical financial data.

I also held positions as visiting fellow at The City University of Hong Kong (May-July 2017), Goethe University Frankfurt (Jan-March 2018), the Fudan Development Institute in Shanghai (April-May 2018), Peking University’s International Political Economy Center (Oct-Nov 2018) and East China Normal University in Shanghai (Sep-Nov 2019).

I am also a co-founder and -organiser of the Warwick Critical Finance Group, a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation & Regionalisation (CSGR), a speaker of the International Political Economy Working Group of the German Political Science Association (DVPW), and a Management Committee member of the ‘China in Europe‘ COST-Action Research Network.

Besides academia

I think it is important to also have a life besides academia. In my free time, I spend time with family and friends, read sci-fi and non-fiction, and (try to) exercise regularly. Sometimes, I also engage in amateur photography, dabble into artistic projects and try my luck with creating gin. My great passions, however, have always been food and travel, and I love cooking and eating food from around the world.