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Dr Merriden Varrall helps business understand and navigate the complex global geopolitical environment. She provides business-relevant insights into global, regional, and local geopolitical trends and works with clients to develop strategies and solutions to identify and mitigate risk and maximise opportunities.

Merriden is a sought-after analyst and adviser on geopolitics, East Asia, China’s foreign policy, and Australia’s bilateral relationship with China.

Merriden has three decades of experience in international relations, diplomacy, and strategic leadership. In addition to her current role as KPMG South ASPAC Geopolitics Special Advisor, she currently heads up geopolitical insights firm vantage geopol. She was KPMG Australia’s Director and then Lead Partner for Geopolitics 2018-2025. From 2014-2018, Merriden was the Director of the Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program. Before joining the Lowy Institute, Merriden was the Assistant Country Director and Senior Policy Advisor at United Nations Development Programme, China. Prior to that she worked for the Australian Government Treasury in macroeconomic policy and the Department of Family and Community Services in strategic policy.

Merriden spent almost eight years living and working in China, including as a UN diplomat, lecturing in foreign policy at the China Foreign Affairs University, and conducting fieldwork for her doctoral research.

Merriden has a PhD examining Chinese foreign policy from Macquarie University, Sydney, and the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. She has a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from the Australian National University and completed her undergraduate studies in international studies at the University of Technology Sydney. Her analyses have appeared in academic journals, as well as publications such as The Quarterly, The New York Times, Nikkei Asian Review, Foreign Policy, The East Asia Forum, and the Lowy Interpreter, among others.