Jakob Hensing, DAAD/AGI Research Fellow

Jakob Hensing

Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi)

Jakob Hensing is a DAAD/AGI Research Fellow in Fall 2025.

His permanent position is at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, where he focuses on the intersection of economic and security policy. His work explores how power and security considerations are reshaping the global economy, especially in terms of competition and collaboration on emerging technologies. Previously, he worked for more than five years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and at Orphoz Public, McKinsey’s dedicated public sector branch in Germany. He holds a doctorate in politics and a master’s in international relations from the University of Oxford, as well as a bachelor’s degree in integrated social sciences from Jacobs University Bremen.

His research at AGI focuses on the interplay between the U.S. government and the tech sector in shaping and implementing technology-related measures to advance national security and foreign policy objectives—in short, U.S. techno-economic statecraft. It seeks to understand how the positions and expertise of industry stakeholders feature in the U.S. policy process, also with a view to enabling allies such as Germany to engage constructively and to benefit from learnings for their own management of the public-private interface in an era of global technology competition.

Jakob’s most recent GPPi study titled “Action Potentials: Neurotechnology, Brain-Computer Interfaces, and Implications for Germany’s and Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy,” appeared in August 2025. His writing and commentary have featured in Foreign Policy, Wirtschaftswoche, and Newsweek, among others.

AGI is pleased to welcome Jakob Hensing as a DAAD/AGI Research Fellow in Fall 2025.

His permanent position is at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, where he focuses on the intersection of economic and security policy. His work explores how power and security considerations are reshaping the global economy, especially in terms of competition and collaboration on emerging technologies. Previously, he worked for more than five years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and at Orphoz Public, McKinsey’s dedicated public sector branch in Germany. He holds a doctorate in politics and a master’s in international relations from the University of Oxford, as well as a bachelor’s degree in integrated social sciences from Jacobs University Bremen.

His research at AGI focuses on the interplay between the U.S. government and the tech sector in shaping and implementing technology-related measures to advance national security and foreign policy objectives—in short, U.S. techno-economic statecraft. It seeks to understand how the positions and expertise of industry stakeholders feature in the U.S. policy process, also with a view to enabling allies such as Germany to engage constructively and to benefit from learnings for their own management of the public-private interface in an era of global technology competition.

Jakob’s most recent GPPi study titled “Action Potentials: Neurotechnology, Brain-Computer Interfaces, and Implications for Germany’s and Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy,” appeared in August 2025. His writing and commentary have featured in Foreign Policy, Wirtschaftswoche, and Newsweek, among others.

The DAAD/AGI Research Fellowship Program is funded by a generous grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).