Zeno Leoni Keynote Speaker

Dr Zeno Leoni is a Lecturer at King’s College London, Executive Director of ITSS Verona, researcher and author.  He is an excellent keynote speaker on topics within international security, globalisation, and Sino-Western relations, and is widely considered a world-leading expert on US-China relations.

At King’s College London, he lectures in War Studies Education at the Defence Studies Department, based within the Joint Services and Staff College (JSCSC) of the Defence Academy UK.  He is also an affiliate to King’s College London’s Lau China Institute, and is co-convenor of their policy brief series ‘China in the World’.  In 2020 he was made a Visiting Scholar at Nebrija University, in Madrid, in Defence and Security Studies.

Zeno recently won an Impact Prize 2023 awarded by the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy of King’s College London for his engagement with media and governments.

In 2021, Zeno authored a monograph entitled ‘American Grand Strategy from Obama to Trump: Imperialism After Bush and China’s Hegemonic Challenge’. He also published a chapter, in a collection titled ‘The global impact of COVID-19 on rights and justice’, about the New Cold War and the implications of Covid-19.

In his latest book ‘Grand Strategy and the Rise of China’ (2023), Zeno explores Sino-Western relations and provides his analysis and insights on the complexity of the top geopolitical issue of the next decade.

He is a regular advisor and consultant to policy-makers in the UK and Italy. He has supported and guided institutions such as the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) and the Higher Command and Staff Course (HCSC), part of the the Joint Services and Staff College, on the subject of China. He held discussions with the Asia-Pacific Team of the HM Government Cabinet Office in relation to the Integrated review 2021, and was involved in small-group discussions at the Oxford Indo-Pacific Symposium and think tank.

In 2020, he wrote Italy’s first civil-military-produced Future Trends Concept 2040+ document with the Italian Joint Chiefs of Defence Staff which analysed geopolitical, technological, environmental and economic trends.  He frequently delivers guest lectures at Italy’s premier defence education institution, the Italian Defence Higher Studies Institute (IASD).

Zeno’s commentary on global politics and US-China relations frequently appears in global media publications, such as The Times, Corriere della Sera, Rai Radio Uno, Limes, France24, TRT World, Libération, and Le Temps. His analysis on Taiwan’s defence against China reached 12,000 reads on the Conversation.

Zeno is Executive Director of not-for-profit ITSS Verona (International Team for the Study of Security Verona), a cultural association dedicated to spreading knowledge and education around International Security. The association has a scientific committee of 100 scholars globally, 60 interns, and will soon launch a summer school. In 2019 it held the biggest academic conference on Brexit.