In her words, Diana says: “To understand the Chinese economy you have to understand the communist mind, and I have the unlikely advantage of having grown up in Bulgaria before the Berlin Wall came down. But, having been trained by some of the greatest Western economists, I also understand how the market economy works. I am one of the few economists who really knows capitalism, communism and how the two have come together in China.”

Diana joined JPMorgan Asia Growth and Income plc as a Non-executive Director to the Board in March 2023.

Diana set up Enodo Economics, an independent macroeconomic forecasting company, in 2016 to untangle complexity, challenge the consensus and make sense of the future.

For 16 years prior she worked at Lombard Street Research, most recently as their chief economist and head of research. In that role, she set the agenda for the firm’s team of economists and strategists while conducting her own global analysis. She joined LSR after completing her master’s degree in economics in 2000, and over the years has covered a wide range of developing and developed economies. Diana became a director of LSR in 2005 and headed the firm’s UK service from then until 2009. Between 2010 and 2013 she was based in Hong Kong overseeing LSR’s expansion in Asia.

She has co-authored three books on China and the global economy. In 2022, she co-authored ‘China’s Quest for Financial Self-reliance - How Beijing Plans to Decouple from the Dollar-Based Global Trading and Financial System’. In 2011, she published “The American Phoenix”, which predicted a wrenching slowdown in China and a troubled decade for Europe but greater resilience for America’s economy. In 2006 “The Bill from the China Shop” explained how Asia’s savings glut was driving US households ever deeper into debt and why the process was unsustainable.

In his words, Nigel says: “I have followed China's development from the Cultural Revolution to the present day and have sought to analyse this within both the context of China's history and culture and the contemporary global strategic context. I regularly read, listen to and watch Chinese-language media and seek to combine what I learn from this with my own first-hand experience.”

He worked for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think-tank, from 2007 to 2017. Prior to that he served for 31 years in the British Secret Intelligence Service, retiring at the end of 2006 as assistant chief and director of operations and intelligence.

His research has focused on transnational terrorism, insurgency, transnational organised crime, cyber security, intelligence and security and the evolving character of conflict. He has written and broadcast on all these topics and has also been engaged in a variety of para-diplomatic activities on behalf of the UK government, including leading a Sino-UK Track 1.5 Cyber Security Dialogue. In 2020, he authored “The Great Decoupling: China, America and the Struggle for Technological Supremacy”, a book published by Hurst and which Professor Rory Medcalf described as, “A timely, sane and compelling account of the techno-strategic contest that will shape the worlds of 2020s and beyond”. In 2016, he authored China’s Cyber Power, an IISS Adelphi book published by Routledge.

He graduated from St John’s College Oxford with a BA in oriental studies (Chinese). He is married with two children and one grandchild and lives in London.