Max is the founder of political risk consultancy, Enmetena Advisory, having previously worked as head of Political Risk at AKE, and at PR and government relations firm, Hawthorn Advisors.  

Max has advised UK and US government agencies on sanctions and the former Soviet Union. In 2023, he published the acclaimed ‘Economic War – Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West’. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Philadelphia) and an associate fellow of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (London).  He is a frequent contributor to Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, and the Financial Times, and is a regular television commentator on Russian and Eurasia politics and international political economy.

Max majored in Government & Russian at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania and holds an MA in International Relations from the School of Oriental & African Studies, London University. He was brought up in New York, Austria, and Switzerland and has US, UK, and German nationalities. He speaks German, Russian, and Spanish and has spent the last decade learning Georgian.