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About Sympodium
Institute
We are a team of scholars, policymakers, and media practitioners working across the world. We bring rigour, innovation, and community to three interconnected areas: education; research; and public engagement.
Sympodium is committed to educating a new generation of thinkers and doers in strategic communications. We achieve this by investing our teaching with the results of our own cutting-edge researchers.
Sympodium works with government and civil society strategic communicators who face the most challenging problems across the world. And we do this in a holistic, ethical, and sustainable way. But above all, we seek to demonstrate that through more innovative and far-sighted communications, a better politics and geopolitics can be brought to benefit our societies.
Our Executive Team
Our
Senior Fellows
Prof. Chiyuki
AOI
Senior Fellow (Indo-Pacific)
Dr. Chiyuki Aoi is Professor of International Security at the Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP), the University of Tokyo, where she directs Strategic Communications Education and Research Unit (SCERU) established with support from the European Union. She also serves as a member of the Editorial Board of Defence Strategic Communications, the official journal of NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. Aoi obtained B.A. at Sophia University(Japan), M.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(U.S.), and PhD at Columbia University (U.S.). From 2008 to 2009, she was Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and from 2019 to 2020 Visiting Professor there. In August 2018, she was elected a member of the Council on Security and Defense Capabilities by the Shinzo Abe Cabinet.
Paul-Christian
Bell CVO
Senior Fellow (Political Campaigns)
Paul-Christian Bell CVO is a writer and strategic communications practitioner who has worked for governments and businesses in more than 20 countries, notably South Africa where he was director of information for its electoral commission during the 1994 transition to democracy, and Iraq during 2004-11 where he led US forces’ largest civilian stratcom operation. In recent years he has lived in Georgia, observing the challenges faced by a small post-Soviet state wrestling with its own democratic transition, and been a regular contributor to the NATO Defence Strategic Communications journal.
Esmeralda
Castrillo Dick
Senior Fellow (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion)
Esmeralda is a Director at Brunswick Group, and Chief of Staff to the Chair. She has worked across a range of global organizations and corporate clients, and specialises in strategies, positioning and campaigns that address reputational issues. Prior to Brunswick Esmeralda worked in the UK Government as a Senior Communications Advisor, including at No.10 Downing Street. During her time working for HMG she set up the mutual mentoring program Connecting Diverse Voices to drive diversity and inclusion within the Government Communication Service. Esmeralda is certified by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and has earned a Masters in Interpreting and Translation as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategic Communications from King’s College London. She is also an active member of Brunswick Group’s London Women’s Network.
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Andrew
Cheatham
Senior Fellow (Conflict Resolution)
Andrew Cheatham has a rich background in global policy, international law, conflict resolution, and strategic communications. He is a Senior Advisor at the United States Institute of Peace where he navigates complex geopolitical challenges and helps amplify the impact of international interventions through strategic communications. Notably, his work has encompassed leading high-profile crisis negotiations and political dialogues in Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Libya and Somalia as well as bolstering U.S. efforts to promote stability in Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and Haiti. He brings invaluable insights into multilateral and bilateral strategic communications particularly by way of his knowledge of the intricate dynamics of international diplomacy and conflict resolution.
James P.
Farwell
Senior Fellow (Political Strategy)
James P. Farwell is an expert in strategic communication, notably for political strategy; information warfare; and cyber strategy, policy and legal authorities. The author of seven books on cyber or national security, he is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, a senior fellow, Institute for biodefense research, and a visiting scholar at the Aimee Freeman school of business at Tulane university. By background, a lawyer, he is an expert in Cybersecurity. As a political consultant, he has advised in eight presidential campaigns at home and abroad.
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Dr Maria
Golubeva
Senior Fellow (Intergovernmental Communications)
Maria Golubeva has served as a Member of the Latvian Parliament (2018-2022), as chair of European Affairs Committee (2022) and as Minister of Interior of Latvia (2021-2022). Maria has a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. She has taught Politics at Riga Stradins University and briefly worked for the Latvian government before joining the Latvian think-tank PROVIDUS in 2004, where she led public policy research on a range of topics. In 2013-2014, she worked for the consultancy company ICF in Brussels. She has conducted policy research and trained senior civil servants in several regions, from Central Asia to Iraq. Maria Golubeva is the founder of Baltic Initiative on European Reform and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). In 2023-24, she has contributed to a number of publications on European politics since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. She is currently leading USAID Information Integrity Program in Georgia, working to improve the resilience of Georgian society against information manipulation.
Dr Charles
Kriel
Senior Fellow (Artificial Intelligence)
Dr Charles Kriel is a filmmaker, and AI and counter-disinformation specialist with more than a decade’s experience working across Northern Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern and Central Europe. He’s the director of two feature documentaries, Dis/Informed and People You May Know, broadcast internationally. He was Special Advisor to the UK Parliament Committees on Disinformation, and the Online Safety Bill. He’s currently directing an AI-driven series, and is an avid creator of NFTs.
Prof. Nancy
Snow
Senior Fellow (Public Diplomacy)
Dr. Nancy Snow is a Professor of Communications Emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, a contributing writer to Nikkei and Nikkei Asia, and a senior advisor at Kreab Tokyo. Snow was a principal founding faculty member of the USC Annenberg School and Syracuse University Newhouse School master’s degree program in public diplomacy. She was Japan's first distinguished professor of public diplomacy and held an Abe Fellowship at Keio University and a Fulbright professorship at Sophia University. Snow was a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) at the Department of State and U.S. Information Agency during the Clinton administration. She is the author, editor, and co-editor of sixteen books, including the forthcoming 8th edition of Propaganda and Persuasion (Sage, 2025) and both editions of the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy.