A finance professional and business consultant, James Lee is a scholar and expert in national security, foreign policy, and Indo-Pacific, Eurasian and global affairs.  Trained as a historian and a political economist, James is passionate about contributing creative policy solutions to challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region and the wider world.  

A Partner and Senior Managing Director at Brock Group, a boutique investment bank and business advisory firm, James is Center Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and held research appointments at Harvard’s Korea Institute and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.  He  is also Adjunct Fellow at Hawaii-based Pacific Forum and served as Senior Research Fellow at Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, where he coordinated Track II policy dialogues on nuclear and national security issues co-organized with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington, D.C.) and the Japan Institute of International Affairs (Tokyo).

Author of The Partition of Korea After World War II: A Global History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and other published works, James served as Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Asia Quarterly.  A contributor to American Historical Review (Oxford University Press) and Journal of Cold War Studies (MIT Press), James leads the National Security SIG at Harvard Club of New York and is Contributing Editor at The Diplomat.  His writings have been published by outlets such as Financial Times, Newsweek, The National Interest, The Korea Herald, The Straits Times, Council on Foreign Relations, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Williams College (B.A.) and Harvard University (M.A., Ph.D.), James also studied at Beijing University, Moscow State University, and International Christian University (Tokyo).