Leon Hartwell

Guest Author

Leon Hartwell (@LeonHartwell) is a Senior Associate at LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics, and the co-founder and chair of the Russia-Ukraine Dialogues. Additionally, he is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington D.C., and a Visiting Fellow at the European Leadership Network (ELN). His areas of research expertise encompass Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and matters pertaining to the Balkans.

Previously, Hartwell was CEPA’s Acting Director of the Transatlantic Leadership Program and served as Senior Policy Advisor for Political and Development Cooperation at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Zimbabwe from 2012 to 2013. He completed a joint doctoral degree summa cum laude at Leipzig University (Germany) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa). His thesis analyzed the use of mediation in the resolution of armed conflicts. Hartwell has published extensively in professional scholarly outlets and mainstream media ranging from the Negotiation Journal (Harvard-MIT-Tufts) and Oxford University Press to Forbes and War on The Rocks. He speaks Afrikaans, English, Dutch, and Latvian, which he studied at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. He is also on LinkedIn.