Iain Martin – a London-based commentator and author – is director of Engelsberg Ideas. He is also the co-founder and director of the London Defence Conference. During his journalistic career he was a columnist for The Times, editor of The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday, and deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal Europe. He has written two books: Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy (2013) about the 2008 financial crash, and Crash, Bang, Wallop: the inside story of London’s Big Bang and a financial revolution that changed the world (2016).

Mattias Hessérus is the Director of the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy and sits on the steering committee of the Engelsberg Applied History Programme at the University of Cambridge and King’s College London. Hessérus holds a PhD in History from Uppsala University and was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Columbia University in New York City (2007-2008), and a Visiting Researcher at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris (2008-2009). He is the author of Rätten till Privatlivet (Carlsson bokförlag, 2017), a history of the press and privacy in Sweden, co-author of How Media Ownership Matters (Oxford University Press, 2025; w/R. Benson, T. Neff and J. Sedel) and co-editor of several anthologies.

Paul Lay is senior editor at Engelsberg Ideas. He is a former editor of History Today, reviews for The Times, the Telegraph and Literary Review, and is the author of Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate (Head of Zeus, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize.

Alastair Benn is deputy editor of Engelsberg Ideas. He writes regularly on culture, the arts, and history, and hosts and produces The EI Podcast. He has co-edited several books, including The Market: Money, States and Ideas for a Free World, published by Bokförlaget Stolpe.

Jack Dickens is commissioning editor at Engelsberg Ideas. As well as commissioning articles, he manages EI’s ‘In Conversation’ interview series and writes about history and geopolitics. His work has been published in, and featured by, History Today, City AM, The Week, Asia Times and Reaction. He has also appeared on TalkRadio and Monocle Radio’s The Globalist.

Saffron Swire is associate editor at Engelsberg Ideas. She is also a cartoonist for The Observer and a culture writer covering arts, culture, and ideas, with bylines in Prospect, The Spectator, Time Out, Art UK, The New European, among others.

Caitlin Allen is commissioning editor at Engelsberg Ideas. She writes about geopolitics and cultural trends, informed by her background in anthropology. Her work has featured in Reaction, New Lines and Tank Magazine.