Velina Tchakarova: preference

Transcript context

…Now a question about your work at FACE. We’re recording a day after the Iranian helicopter crash, and we don’t know what happened. It might have just been a helicopter crash because of bad weather and fog, but surely you have clients calling you, messaging you, pinging you, wanting to know what’s going on. What is it you do in the course of the day to be able to respond to them coherently? What concrete steps do you take to have a message that is more interesting or more informative than what they might see on Twitter? Well, first and foremost, what I post on Twitter is not what I actually discuss with my clients off the record. That’s very important because I have networks. I have 25 years of professional background, and I have networks of people who have a proven track record of analysis and assessment, and they are very often also on the ground. What I do is, of course, get as credible information as possible. My clients usually ask exactly these kinds of questions as you’re doing right now. In the example you gave, will there be an escalation between Israel and Iran? Will there be political turmoil in Iran following this helicopter crash? Will there be a next military episode between Israel and Iran? What will be the cascading effects beyond the region? Or the question that you asked about the military conflict and the possible military attack on Taiwan. These are questions that come out almost every day. Practically, what I post on Twitter is linked to information I read. These are open-source analyses and mostly assessments by other colleagues or articles being published. I just go through these sources, and I post and comment. That’s not the same as when you have to give an answer to a client, for instance, who has certain exposure in a particular region or has an investment portfolio and this investment portfolio is, for instance, affected by certain military conflicts, and so on and so forth. So it’s a very different way of consulting. Twitter, which is now X, is just for fun. This is my rescue from the day because the whole day I just read and read and read a lot of sources, a lot of information. I have a lot of chat rooms on various telecommunication platforms. Of course, with time, I can easily identify whether the source is credible or not. I use five different languages. It’s a very, very diverse way of getting information. I know, for instance, when it comes to a certain conflict or a certain region, which sources to use and which platforms are credible. That is a very, very different kind of approach if, for instance, a common user on Twitter will just check on Twitter and start reading through the sources. Thanks to this kind of long-term experience, it’s very easy for me to track and understand what is credible, what is not. This is only one of several pillars of my activities at FACE. Yes, I have private clients within FACE, but these are individuals from different backgrounds, different professions, who are mostly interested in this world of geopolitics and do not have the same amount of time to read and to go through all these sources. They just rely on my assessment for specific topics. Now, I must also highlight that the daily business of politics is not my main field. My main field is actually the long-term, 10- to 15-year macro perspective. ly on my assessment for specific topics. Now, I must also highlight that the daily business of politics is not my main field. My main field is actually the long-term, 10- to 15-year macro perspective. I actually draw scenarios for the future of international relations and for the future of the relations between great powers — for instance, China-United States, or Russia-China, or India-China, and so on and so forth — for the next 10 to 15 years, thanks to trends and risk analysis. This is something that is derived from the daily business of politics but in fact is a different methodology. This different methodology is not helpful for, let’s say, tactical developments. It is helpful if you, for instance, consider long-term-oriented investment based or derived from this macroanalysis. What do I mean? Let me give you one example. Now people are talking about semiconductors, and an investment in semiconductors would be a very smart investment. I invested in semiconductors six, seven years ago, knowing that there will be actually a bifurcation of the global system, and one of the critical areas of it will be semiconductors. Having the long-term trend projections in mind helps you to get the big picture in the long run if you are, of course, patient and if you really want to play this game, the long game. This is where I’m located mostly, not at the tactical level.…

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