Nick Ackert is an Associate Vice President at The Asia Group (TAG), where he works closely with the firm’s chairman and senior advisor network to service clients and drive business development in finance, emerging technologies, and defense. He also supports firmwide thought leadership and leverages his interdisciplinary training to spearhead business-focused, quantitative geopolitical risk modeling powered by TAG’s next-generation technology.
Nick is an experienced geopolitical commentator specializing in Chinese foreign policy and Indo-Pacific security. His portfolio focuses on tariffs and export controls, China’s economy, Taiwan and the South China Sea, and Indo-Pacific AI regulation. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the National Taiwan University Center for China Studies and has published in various press and academic outlets including Nikkei Asia, Global Studies Quarterly, and The European Journal of International Security.
Nick previously served as TAG’s Deputy Director of Research and then as a content innovator for TAG AI, the firm’s artificial intelligence-enabled geopolitics platform. Before coming to TAG, he was the lead research associate with Harvard Business School’s Business, Government, and the International Economy (BGIE) unit. His earlier experience includes roles with the China Project, U.S. Congress, and the Association for Foreign Relations in Taiwan.
Nick graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from Harvard University with a concentration in Classics. He holds master’s degrees in international affairs, international history, and political science from Peking University, LSE, and MIT, respectively. Proficient in Mandarin, he has lived and worked in Taipei, Beijing, and London, bringing global perspective and deep regional expertise to his work.