Dr. Neumann is an authority on Latin American politics and security, as well as on crime-terror pipelines, particularly on stemming illicit trade as a counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency strategy that supports businesses. She is the author Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). Dr. Neumann served four years on the OECD’s Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade (since its inception) and on their Advisory Group.

She holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Columbia University, and fellowships at Yale University, Columbia University and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her company Asymmetrica is a member of the Global Counter Terrorism Research Network (GCTRN) for the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). Her other work for government and law enforcement has encompassed INTERPOL, the Asymmetric Warfare Group, the US State Department, and the US Defense Department. Notably, Dr. Neumann edited and reviewed the teaching and reference text for the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) on counterinsurgency in Colombia.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Neumann worked in corporate planning and corporate finance for a Latin American conglomerate, culminating in its IPO (initial public offering) on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993, making the company only the third in all of Latin America to be listed on the NYSE. She is a member of the board of directors of the Latin American Herald Tribune and is currently advising a Latin American political campaign.

Dr. Neumann has spoken at Columbia University, Yale University, Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the National Defense University (NDU) at Fort Lesley McNair in Washington, DC. She has also spoken at many US military bases around the world, and was a keynote speaker at the February 2018 meeting of the American Bar Association’s National Security Committee. She is a regular guest on the Fox Business show, Varney & Co., the most-watched business show in the US. Dr. Neumann has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, The (London) Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Weekly Standard and Standpoint. She also appears regularly on CNN en Español, Fox Business, Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Brazil’s Globo TV, and Colombia’s NTN 24. She has been interviewed for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Post, The Daily Beast, USA Today, Foreign Policy, The Miami Herald, France’s Libération and Agence France-Presse, and Brazil’s Veja. Other media include: MundoFox, MSNBC, the BBC, China’s CCTV (China Central Television), Fox News. Caracol Radio, and others.

Mr. Melo Felgueres will receive his Master of Arts in International Relations – Conflict Management and International Economics in  May 2018 from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Political Science (minor) from the University of Miami and did a semester (Fall 2014) at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining Asymmetrica, he worked at the OECD-OCDE’s Development Center, where he drafted analytic reports, policy briefings and country analyses for the Africa Unit, contributed to data analysis and policy research related to topics such as regional integration and trade for the Latin American Economic Outlook 2018, and was charged with protocol preparation and sector specific presentations for the upcoming Africa Forum 2017. He has worked as a project manager at a strategic communications firm in Mexico City, and as a coordinator in the Cultural Affairs department of the Mexico Consulate General in New York. At the United Nations, he worked at the Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean, where he was a contributing author and researcher to United States Trade Developments 2013-2014, and at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where he provide research and analysis for the UNDP investigation Human Development Report 2014, regarding drug trafficking, national and public security in Latin America. He is perfectly fluent in English, French, and Spanish, and conversational in Italian and Portuguese.