Atossa Araxia Abrahamian Keynote Speaker

Author, The Cosmopolites & The Hidden Globe (2015, 2024)
Washington Post Top 10 Book of 2024
New America National Fellow (2024) & Whiting Nonfiction Grant (2022)

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian's Biography

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian is an independent journalist who writes about the cracks in the nation-state system. A Swiss-Iranian-Canadian-American with a truly global outlook, she investigates how people, power and money move through the grey areas that borders cannot contain.

Her acclaimed debut, The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen (2015), uncovered the multi-billion-dollar trade in “golden passports,” reframing debates on mobility and belonging for both the ultra-rich and the stateless poor. Her latest book, The Hidden Globe (Riverhead, 2024), combines sharp reporting with legal and cultural insight to reveal the secret jurisdictions that prop up world trade — from freeports and special economic zones to ships sailing under flags of convenience and the micro-states rewriting laws in outer space. Named one of the Washington Post’s Top 10 Books of 2024, it was also listed among CBS’s Best Books of the Year and as a New York Times Notable Book.

Atossa’s work appears in the New York Review of Books, New York Times, London Review of Books, The Intercept and more. She shaped international conversation as an editor at Al Jazeera America (2013–2016) and The Nation (2018–2020). A Livingston Award finalist and Silvers Award winner, she received the Whiting Nonfiction Grant and is a 2024 National Fellow at New America.

On stage, Atossa brings her curiosity and clarity to audiences, helping them grasp a world where citizenship is commodified, borders are blurred and sovereignty constantly shifts. Raised in Geneva and now based in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons, she equips leaders to see the bigger picture in an increasingly borderless age.

Citizenship - esp. millionaire mobility trends and the global market for passports

The offshore world - tax, shipping, legal loopholes

Globalization, nationalism and inequality

Statelessness, borders, and international law

She brings global authority on borders, sovereignty and the shadow architecture of world trade, grounded in acclaimed reporting that maps how power, money and people move through the grey zones the nation-state cannot contain.
She equips leaders to understand the strategic implications of “golden passports”, freeports, special economic zones and flags of convenience, translating complex legal and geopolitical systems into clear insight for decision-making.
She offers a rare lens on mobility and belonging for both the ultra-rich and the stateless poor, helping organisations rethink risk, legitimacy and responsibility in an era where citizenship is increasingly commodified.
She delivers sharp, compelling analysis shaped by editorial leadership at Al Jazeera America and The Nation, giving audiences a journalist’s clarity and a practitioner’s sense of how narratives shift policy and public opinion.
She helps boards and executives anticipate disruption in a border-blurred world, drawing on the frameworks of The Hidden Globe and The Cosmopolites to stress-test strategy against the realities of modern sovereignty.