Stragellan: Strategic geopolitical socio economic research: Prediction Markets, Global Expert Network, Stakeholder analysis.

Stragellan Profile: Case Studies

Stragellan projects include political and economic developments in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. For private as well as public clients we have examined oil & gas issues in Venezuela and Bolivia; political events in Lebanon in the lead-up to elections in May; the merger of Arcelor-Mittal; the takeover of Volkswagen by Porsche and the economic and political consequences and fallout of the current worldwide economic crisis, etc.

Case Studies:

Computers can figure out
all kinds of problems,
except the things in the world
that just don't add up

James Magary

Aad J. van Kampen
Founder, CEO

The founder and CEO of Stragellan BV, Mr. van Kampen has extensive international business experience. After completing his education in the Netherlands, Mr. van Kampen worked for a wide variety of corporations in Europe and the U.S., making a career out of establishing and managing international business divisions and opening new markets.

Among others, Mr. van Kampen was the manager of International Business Programs at a U.S. biomedical company in the 1980s. Later he cofounded BioSpectives Ltd., a Luxembourg-based company that served as a connector for bioscientific researchers to multinational pharmaceutical companies in order to market niche research & development. He served as its Executive Vice President until the company was sold.
Since his early retirement in 2002, Mr. van Kampen has been a consultant and advisor to several multinationals, providing his expertise to give these corporations an understanding of the political, cultural and socio-economic challenges before making critical investment decisions.

Mr. van Kampen’s broad international exposure, coupled with his personal interest in geopolitical events, led him to establish Stragellan BV in 2004 to fill a market niche as a strategic geopolitical and socio-economic research company. Clients have included large academic think tanks, hedge funds, private equity firms, as well as multinational companies.
Over his career, Mr van Kampen has lived and worked in the U.S., Belgium, Luxembourg, and Saudi Arabia. He is married and has two grown children as well as one grandchild.

Anders Härdig
Lebanon Project Manager

Anders Härdig is a consultant with Fenova Consulting International (FCI), a Sweden-based consulting firm specializing in qualitative political analyses. He also is a Swedish Fulbright Fellow and has been a Ph.D. Candidate at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, D.C., since 2005.

Mr. Härdig received his B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Linköping University in Sweden, including coursework completed at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. His primary geographical area of expertise is the Levant, where he has been a frequent guest both as a private visitor and a researcher, most recently in the summer of 2008 as a research affiliate at American University of Beirut’s Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) in Lebanon.
Mr. Härdig is working on a research project examining the relationship between Lebanon’s civil society and political system.

Prior to moving to Washington, Mr. Härdig worked on asylum issues regarding Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza at the Swedish Migration Board.

An IT-specialist must not only have technical know-how and experience, but also must have strong communication skills. For example, an IT-er senses where problems might arise and thinks of solutions before hand to prevent those problems. However, that is not enough, these problems need to be communicated rapidly and accurately to all parties involved in an organization. This way the services can be optimized to the whishes of the client.

TRVST Tax Advisors & Accountants is a dynamic company with fifteen employees and a focus on small businesses. We combine high quality service with an active approach and a high level of personal involvement with our clients. We are specialized in the specific problems encountered by entrepreneurs active on the Amsterdam stock exchange and options exchange (Euronext) as well as those of portfolio managers and financial advisors.

In addition we focus on wealthy and trading individuals and small businesses working in trade, production and corporate services.

Blenheim is a Dutch law firm, based in Amsterdam, Holland, specialized in Dutch business and corporate law. Blenheim's Dutch corporate and business law attorneys provide a wide range of legal services in Netherlands corporate and business law, and are specialized in matters of international trade.

Our Amsterdam law firm has an edge on other law firms in The Netherlands. The edge of legal quality and integrity, an eye for the needs of our Dutch and international clients, responsiveness, and the aim to provide real value for money.

Park Centre is a business and office centre located on a scenic location in The Hague.

The beautiful villa offers a wide range of furnished office spaces with phone, internet for one or more people. Phone service and secretarial services are optional and leases run for both shorter and longer periods of time. Park Centre also offers meeting rooms with a variety of facilities for small and large groups.

The Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael is a knowledge institute for international relations. In a constantly changing global environment, Clingendael acts as a think-tank as well as a diplomatic academy in order to identify and analyze emerging political and social developments for the benefit of government and the general public.

Clingendael is an institute with an international focus. International political leaders, diplomats, journalists and researchers are frequently invited to give lectures and to take part in conferences and seminars. Visiting scholars from all over the world participate in the Institute’s activities.

The University of Amsterdam (UvA) has a long history. It evolved from the Athenaeum Illustre (1632) and now, with around 25,000 students, 5,000 staff and a budget of over 487million euros, it ranks among the largest comprehensive universities of Europe. It belongs to the League of European Research Universities and maintains intensive contact with universities all over the world.

At the University of Amsterdam, education and research are conducted in the seven faculties of the humanities, the social and behavioural sciences, economics and business, law, the natural sciences, medicine and dentistry.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a world class centre for its concentration of teaching and research across the full range of the social, political and economic sciences. Founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, LSE has an outstanding reputation for academic excellence.

From its foundation LSE has aimed to be a laboratory of the social sciences, a place where ideas are developed, analysed, evaluated and disseminated around the globe.

The German Institute for International and Security Affairs of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) is an independent scientific establishment that conducts practically oriented research on the basis of which it then advises the Bundestag (the German parliament) and the federal government on foreign and security policy issues. The analyses and publications produced by SWP researchers and their participation in national and international debates on key issues help to shape opinion in their respective domains.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) was founded in 1866 as a private, independent, non-sectarian institution of higher learning, functioning under a charter from the State of New York. AUB has grown from 16 students in a rented house to a major university with over 7,446 students located on a 73-acre campus overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The University is governed by an autonomous Board of Trustees comprised of international leaders in business, education, diplomacy, engineering, philanthropy, science, and medicine.

Since its founding, AUB has set standards in higher education worldwide. The University stresses high academic standards and is committed to the ideals of critical thinking, open debate, and diversity. AUB is a coeducational institution that is open to all qualified students without regards to race, religion, economic status, or political affiliation.

Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is also the first and oldest corporation in North America.

Harvard is consistently ranked at or near the top of international college and university rankings.

We closely monitored the takeover of a large European auto manufacturer by its much smaller joint venture partner. Our research focused on gaining an understanding of the exact stake the bidder company was pursuing and if it would gradually lead to a complete takeover (in this case more than 30.3% ownership would require a total takeover scenario according to local law).

Given the broad political and socio-economic implications of this takeover, we focused our collection on the broader picture, including political and public sentiment – locally as well as nationally – and the potential for organized labor to obstruct or sour the takeover deal. Our information was essential for helping our hedge fund client determine its ultimate position in the deal.

An Asian steel magnate’s hostile bid made for a European steel conglomerate prompted an emotional storm in the European steel industry. Fears that the European company would first be acquired and then subsequently disassembled for short-term gain by the new owners dominated the headlines for weeks.

Using our network of industry sources, we were able to determine that although the companies appeared at odds on the issue publicly, behind the scenes the major players were working toward an agreement on takeover terms. We reported the details of these behind-the-scenes negotiations to our client over a period of months. In the end, we were able to show convincingly that the merger would take indeed place and that it would yield positive results from an investment perspective.

An Asian steel magnate’s hostile bid made for a On behalf of a large international oil conglomerate, Stragellan investigated the potential for partial or complete nationalization of the oil & gas sector in a Latin American country.

During political campaigns held in the country several months before we began our project, a presidential candidate had promised to nationalize the industry if elected. When he won by a landslide, our client asked us to determine if the candidate’s campaign talk was mere rhetoric or if it represented his true intentions.

Through in-depth interviews with close associates of the president-elect (he had not yet been inaugurated) as well as industry insiders, politicians and opponents, we were able to develop a profile of the new leader that clearly showed that he would likely follow through with his election promise. We reported this finding to our client three months before the inauguration and provided clear value to our client’s investment strategy in the relevant country.

A large Think Tank has asked us to help measure (near real-time) political developments in a Mediterranean country so that it can methodically understand the processes that underlie decision making in that country, the way alliances are formed and maintained, and which political parties and figures are key to the country’s future.

We are using both qualitative (person-to-person interviews) and quantitative tools (SGN Surveys and Stragellan FM) in this ongoing project, which is part of a much larger and more comprehensive academic research project.

In another large academic project, taking place in an Asian country, the challenges to obtain qualitative and quantitative data were quite significant, because of an ongoing war and existing security issues. The task was to measure the way in which groups and individuals communicated with each other on the micro and macro levels to find consensus on a range of issues.

We used a cadre of experts inside the country as well as experts in our network in Europe, the US and in Asia. This project is ongoing in its second phase.