Asia

Tom helps to steer Gavekal’s global research, with a special focus on energy markets. Before joining Gavekal in 2014 he worked as an analyst and commentator at media organizations including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review, earning his spurs as the lead foreign exchange analyst for Dow Jones during the 1997-98 Asian currency crisis. He originally started his working life as an exploration geologist, until a collapse in commodity prices forced him into journalism as the traditional refuge of the otherwise unemployable.

Tom focuses on geoeconomic issues, reporting on China’s influence overseas and on how middle powers from Southeast Asia to Latin America are hedging between China and the US. He also looks at emerging economies more broadly, especially India. Tom spent a decade with Dragonomics in Beijing, where he was managing editor of the China Economic Quarterly. He lectures on the China & Globalization MSc course at King’s College London, where he is an affiliate of the Lau China Institute. He is the author of China’s Urban Billion: The Story Behind the Biggest Migration in Human History (Zed, 2012), and China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road (Zed, 2017). He also wrote a chapter in To Get Rich is Glorious (Brookings, 2019), an academic survey of China’s Reform & Opening process.

Simon oversees all output from Gavekal’s global research service and frequently appears on webinars and video interviews in the role of interrogator. He occasionally writes on political-economy developments in Asia, which is his expertise. Before joining Gavekal in 2012, he was an analyst at Blackrock and hedge funds based in London and Hong Kong. His early career was spent as a journalist working for media outlets including Bloomberg News and the South China Morning Post.

Udith Sikand joined Gavekal in 2013 as an analyst covering macro-economic and market developments in India and the major Southeast Asian economies. Previously, he worked with investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods as an equity research associate covering Indian and South Korean banks. Prior to KBW, he worked as a research analyst with CreditSights covering Asian sovereigns and credit strategy. Udith holds an undergraduate degree in economics from SRCC, University of Delhi and a Masters degree in International Political Economy from the University of Warwick.