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

Stragellan Profile: Primary Research

We define Stragellan’s services overall as strategic primary-source research. Our initial research - and the resulting analytic products that result from it - keeps to the tenet that the “truth” of any issue can be found with the original source. In reality, we strike a balance. Many firsthand sources cannot, for a number of reasons, share information and we naturally focus on collecting disparate pieces of information, from many different sources, using a mosaic approach, for which we’ve become known in the industry.

Primary source information can be found in a broad variety of sources, other than through interviews with participants in an event or with experts who are generally the observers or scholars. The value of primary source analysis lies in the effective collection and interpretation of data that is dispersed among the different media in today’s world, be they articles, written commentary, books, library materials etc.

Stragellan’s competitive strength lies in our ability to effectively use the available data sources to locate, collect and analyze information. We divide the way we do primary-source research into two orientations. One is a qualitative process in which our staffers interview subject matter experts in person or by phone; the other is quantitative analytic process in which we call on a toolbox of technologies, including Stakeholder Analysis and Prediction Markets.

Primary-source research and analysis is a good way to get information that’s often not easily available. Companies and other organizations interested in learning more about how primary-source research can help in understanding complex issues, can contact us at info@stragellan.nl or by calling us at +31-(0)70-4166047.

Science is organized knowledge;
wisdom is organized life

Immanuel Kant

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.