Developing the next generation of political risk analysts

Political Risk Demystified (PRDM) Community

PRDM is where people who assess political risk for a living — and the people working toward it — get their judgment read, sharpened, and seen. Your assessments get read by analysts before they get read by employers.

Most political risk roles never get posted. Members see them anyway.

Join for free See this week’s open roles →
Free to join · No card required
Who is in the room

The people you’re trying to reach are already in the room.

Two in five members already do this work for a living. The rest are on their way in — and the two groups are in the same conversation.

Where they work, or came from

  • Foreign service and diplomacy
  • Intelligence services
  • Corporate security
  • Political risk consultancies
  • Multilateral institutions
  • Think tanks and research
  • Banking and financial services
  • Energy · Insurance · Law
  • Media and communications
  • Humanitarian and development

Where they trained

  • Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs
  • Georgetown University, Walsh School of Foreign Service
  • The George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs
  • Harvard University, including the Kennedy School
  • Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies
  • King’s College London
  • New York University

From PRDM intake responses

The Membership

Four things a serious analyst needs, in one place.

I

The Network

Practitioners, hiring managers, and people entering the field, in one working community. Your assessments get read by analysts before they get read by employers.

Included
II

The Curriculum

Structured courses in analytic method: framing a question, weighing evidence, stating confidence, and writing a judgment a decision-maker can act on.

Paid · enroll individually
III

The Field Manual

Navigating the Uncertainty Business — how this work is commissioned, produced, and paid for. Details below.

Buy the book →
IV

PRDM Insider

A weekly assessment of what is moving and what it means, written to the same standard members are taught to write.

Read the archive →
Cover of Navigating the Uncertainty Business
The Field Manual

Navigating the Uncertainty Business

How political risk work is commissioned, produced, and paid for — the parts of the job nobody teaches in a seminar.

“I wish I had it 5 years ago when I started out. I’m still trying to find my footing in this space and it answered a lot of the questions others in the field couldn’t. It cleared up a lot of assumptions I had made about the industry and gave me better direction.”

Clarke Walker · Global Political Consultant, A.G. Sanning
Buy on Gumroad → Buy on Etsy →

Second edition out now

Membership opens with the intake form. Join for free →

The Approach

What members are held to, and what the training is built around.

Judgment before narrative

The conclusion comes first, with the confidence attached to it. Everything after it exists to support or qualify that judgment.

Confidence stated in the open

Likelihood and confidence are two different claims. Analysts here are trained to say both, in language that means the same thing to every reader.

Written to be acted on

An assessment that a decision-maker cannot use is not finished. Length is not evidence of rigor.

Members are held to this. Work that doesn’t meet the standard gets sent back.

Scott R. Siler
The Founder

Scott R. Siler

The standard on this page is the one he teaches, and has spent fifteen years being paid to apply.

Teaching
Political Risk Analysis — Security Studies Program, The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs
Practice
Founder, Exergy International · Director of Analytics, Enquire AI · Senior Lead Scientist and Senior Economist, Booz Allen Hamilton
Education
M.P.A., Harvard Kennedy School · M.B.A., Georgetown · Certificate in International Studies, Johns Hopkins SAIS · B.A., Gettysburg College
Board
Society for Geopolitics (S4GEO)
The Job Board

The roles are real. Most of them don’t say “political risk.”

Open roles, live, free to every member. Searching the wrong words is why this field looks smaller than it is.

Listings come down when they close

Lead Intelligence Analyst PINKERTON | Comprehensive Risk Management Foster City, CA Today Protective Intelligence Sr Analyst Con Edison New York, NY Today Compliance Analyst Visa Miami, FL This month International Policy Analyst Forge Group, LLC Arlington, VA This month
See all roles at jobs.exergyintl.com →
Career Insider · Optional upgrade

Curated roles, emailed to you three times a week.

Fifteen years in political risk means my feed surfaces more openings in this field than almost anyone’s. Career Insider is that filter, delivered. Roles worth your time, with the noise stripped out. Apply with AI drafts a first pass from your profile and the posting. The board itself stays free.

3x a week Apply with AI
$9.99
per month
Get Career Insider
Curriculum

Taught as a craft, in sequence.

Open now · Paid courses, enroll individually

A marked-up analytic worksheet from the curriculum
One

Framing the question

Turning a client’s vague concern into a question that can actually be answered.

Two

Evidence and its limits

Sourcing, weighting, and knowing when the record cannot carry the claim.

Three

Estimative language

Saying how likely and how confident, precisely, without hedging into uselessness.

Four

The written assessment

Structure, length, and the discipline of leading with the judgment.

Five

Working the market

Where this work sits inside firms, what it is called, and how analysts are hired.

Enroll in a course →
What costs money

The community, PRDM Insider, and the board are free.

Not free for now, not free for the first hundred. The courses, the book, and Career Insider cost money — that is how this gets built. Everything else stays open to members.

  • Community
  • PRDM Insider
  • Job board
Join PRDM

A short intake form. Tell us where you stand in the field and what you are working toward.

Join the people who do this work.

Join for free Opens the intake form · No card required

Not ready to join?

Watch the method first →
For institutions

Are you a University or Career Advisor?

Political risk is a field most career offices can’t staff. PRDM is the auxiliary — a codified path and a working network for your cohort, without the hire.

PRDM for Institutions →