He is a managing director and head of political and country risk at UBS. In this role he oversees the bank’s political and country risk team, which analyses a broad range of economic and policy themes, coordinates country rating and exposure limits, and manages stress-scenario development. He also leads the firm’s internal Economist Forum and Risk Think Tank. Prior to joining UBS, Preston worked for ten years at the political risk consultancy, Eurasia Group, where he was a research director, head of the Europe practice, and a member of the management committee.

He has held a number of teaching positions – Columbia University, UCLA, and SPLOT (a secondary school in Poland), and also worked in the field of international development/ grant-making (German Marshall Fund). He is the co-author of The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing (Oxford, 2009); and was educated in the US (PhD UCLA, BA William and Mary) and the UK (MSc London School of Economics).