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Budd & Wallbom — Independent Risk Management Think Tank — Est. 2026

We study what breaks
before it breaks.

B&W produces independent research and advisory work on the risks institutions see too late — geopolitical, financial, climate, cyber, and operational. No house view to protect. No position to defend.

Read the Research About B&W
2026
Founded, London
5
Practice Areas
12+
Published Reports & Briefings
2
Founders, Direct Access
Method

Risk isn't a headline. It's a position on a grid.

Every engagement starts the same way: plotting likelihood against consequence, then asking which cell your institution is actually prepared for — not the one it assumes it's in. This live snapshot reflects our current view of active risk clusters across practice areas.

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Current Risk LandscapeQ3 2026
← LikelihoodConsequence →
Monitored Flagged for clients
Practice Areas

Five domains. One discipline.

Geopolitical

Sovereign & Geopolitical Risk

State fragility, sanctions regimes, and the second-order effects of a multipolar order.

Financial

Financial & Systemic Risk

Contagion pathways, credit cycles, and the slow-moving stress that precedes fast collapse.

Organized Crime

Organized Crime & Illicit Finance

Trafficking networks, laundering infrastructure, and the quiet overlap between criminal enterprise and state power.

Climate

Climate & Environmental Risk

Physical and transition risk, adaptation economics, and the cost of managed retreat.

Operational

Operational & Institutional Resilience

Supply chain concentration, decision failure, and the gap between risk registers and reality.

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Latest Thinking

From the research desk

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Advisory

Most risk isn't hidden. It's just not on anyone's calendar.

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About B&W

Founded on a disagreement about what "prepared" means.

Budd & Wallbom was founded in London in 2026 by Daniel Budd, a systemic-risk economist, and Alex Wallbom, a former state-intelligence geopolitical analyst. They disagreed, professionally, about whether risk was fundamentally a modeling problem or a judgment problem. B&W was built to hold both positions at once — quantitative where the data allows it, and unapologetically qualitative where it doesn't.

Portrait Placeholder — D. Budd
Co-Founder & Director, Systemic Risk

Daniel Budd

Formerly senior economist at a European central bank's financial stability unit. Writes on contagion, credit cycles, and the mispricing of correlated risk.

Portrait Placeholder — A. Wallbom
Co-Founder & Director, Geopolitical Analysis

Alex Wallbom

Fifteen years in state intelligence analysis before founding B&W. Focuses on sovereign fragility, sanctions dynamics, and institutional trust erosion.

Operating Principles

How we work

Independence

No house position

We take no proprietary positions in markets or politics we analyze. Our incentive is being right, not being popular.

Falsifiability

Published, dated calls

Every forecast is timestamped and later scored against outcomes. We publish our misses alongside our hits.

Range

Domain fluency

Analysts are trained across at least two practice areas — risk rarely respects the boundary between them.

Access

Public core research

Most of our findings are published openly. Depth and early access are reserved for advisory clients.

Meet the Team

Two founders, five domains

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Practice Areas

Where we look for what's about to move.

Five practice areas, run by dedicated leads, cross-staffed on every major engagement.

01

Geopolitical & Sovereign Risk

State fragility, sanctions regimes, coalition realignment, and the diffusion of conflict into markets and supply chains. We track power, not headlines.

Scenario PlanningSovereign Risk ScoringElection Impact Briefs
02

Financial & Systemic Risk

Credit cycles, contagion pathways, and the correlated exposures that stress tests routinely miss. Built for institutions who model risk in-house but want an outside read.

Stress TestingContagion MappingCounterparty Review
03

Organized Crime & Illicit Finance

Trafficking networks, money-laundering infrastructure, and the overlap between criminal enterprise and state power.

Illicit Finance TracingNetwork MappingAML Exposure Review
04

Climate & Environmental Risk

Physical risk, transition risk, and the economics of adaptation — including the decisions institutions delay because the losses are gradual, then sudden.

Physical Risk MappingTransition Pathway ReviewAdaptation Economics
05

Operational & Institutional Resilience

Supply chain concentration, single points of failure, and the gap between what a risk register says and what actually breaks first.

Concentration AuditDecision Failure ReviewResilience Benchmarking
Not sure which domain fits?

Most engagements start across two or three at once.

Talk to an Analyst
Research Library

Reports, articles, and client briefings.

B&W's core intellectual property — 120+ published reports, standalone articles, and briefings across all five practice areas. Public work is free to read. Briefings marked "Client" are shared first with advisory clients.

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Weekly Briefing

One page, every Monday, on what changed.

Team

Two founders. Five domains. No layers in between.

Contact

Start a conversation before you need one.

The best engagements start before the risk is urgent. Tell us what you're watching.

Engagement Types
Office

Budd & Wallbom Ltd
33 Eastcheap
London EC3M 1DT, United Kingdom

inquiries@bw-risk.example
+44 20 7946 0123