Misha Glenny

Misha Glenny is an award-winning journalist who made a name for himself as the BBC’s Central Europe Correspondent covering the 1989 revolutions and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. He has a Sony Gold Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting and won BT’s Information Security Journalist of The Year. Governments and law enforcement agencies regularly consult Misha in Europe and the Americas on the Balkans and Eastern Europe, transnational organised crime, and cyber security. He is also a regular contributor to major publications in Europe, North America, and Japan. His books McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime and DarkMarket: How Hackers Became the New Mafia were shortlisted for several prizes. His most recent book, Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio, is a biography of the former head of a Brazilian cocaine cartel, whom Misha interviewed at length in prison. Nemesis is also in production as a Hollywood feature film. In 2026, Misha took over from Lord Melvyn Bragg as the presenter of the long running and much-loved ‘university of the airwaves’, BBC radio’s In Our Time. Misha can speak on all aspects of organised crime, from money laundering to cyber malfeasance, people smuggling, and the drug trade. He has unique insights into how new technology reshapes traditional organised crime in the narcotics, smuggling and sex trades. He also draws on his background in geopolitics to show how great power relations drive insecurity in cyberspace and why companies cannot rely on the government to shore up their vulnerabilities. Misha recently served as a visiting professor at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, where he taught a course on crime, corruption, and economic transition. For his work there, he was voted the best lecturer at SIPA. Misha has also taught at the London School of Economics. Currently, Misha is the Rector of the IWM (Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna.