Michael Wills is Executive Vice President at NBR.
He manages all aspects of NBR’s financial and business operations, including program and business development and corporate strategic planning and risk management, and serves as secretary to the Board of Directors. He also helps lead the Strategic Asia program and manages NBR’s corporate briefing series on geopolitical risk assessment.
Prior to his current position at NBR, he was vice president of strategy and finance (from 2016 to 2017), vice president of research and operations (from 2008 to 2015), and director of the Strategic Asia and Southeast Asia Studies Programs (from 2000 to 2007).
His research expertise includes geopolitics, international security, and the international relations of Asia. He is co-editor with Ashley J. Tellis and most recently Alison Szalwinksi of ten Strategic Asia volumes—including Navigating Tumultuous Times in the Indo-Pacific (2021–22), U.S.-China Competition for Global Influence (2020), China’s Expanding Strategic Ambitions (2019), Power, Ideas, and Military Strategy in the Asia-Pacific (2017), Understanding Strategic Cultures in the Asia-Pacific (2016), and Foundations of National Power in the Asia-Pacific (2015)—and with Robert M. Hathaway of New Security Challenges in Asia (2013). He is a contributing editor to three other Strategic Asia books and several other edited volumes on Asian security
Before joining NBR, Mr. Wills worked at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute in Phnom Penh, and prior to that with Control Risks Group, an international political and security risk management firm, in London.
He holds a BA (Honors) in Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford.
