After completing a Master’s degree in International Economics (with a focus on financial markets and commodities), Sylvie Matelly obtained her PhD (thesis topic: The Economic Determinants of Military Expenditures) in 2000 from the University Pierre Mendès France in Grenoble. She also studied in Barcelona and Montpellier. She joined the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in 2001 as a researcher specializing in defense economics and later became Director of Research (2008). She then joined the Leonard de Vinci School of Management in 2009 as a research professor and later became head of the “Economics, Finance, and International Relations” department. She left EMLV in 2016 to become Deputy Director of IRIS.
In 2023, she took over the leadership of the Jacques Delors Institute. In 2003, she created the Master’s level program “Economics and International Relations,” which is now titled “Geoeconomics, Risk Management, and CSR” at IRIS-Sup, the IRIS school.
In 2001/2002, she collaborated with the Transition and Development Group of Grenoble and the Institute for the Economy in Transition (Moscow) to create a development agency in Kaliningrad as part of a European TACIS project. She was an associate professor at the Leonard de Vinci School of Management in La Défense between 2009 and 2016 and headed the Finance, Economics, Law, and International Relations Department of this school from 2014 to 2016.
Her work, studies, and research lie at the intersection of economics and geopolitics and cover several themes such as industrial and defense policies, economic coercion issues (export or investment controls, sanctions, and anti-corruption measures). Her latest work focuses on the financing of defense companies in the face of ESG and sustainable finance constraints. She is also interested in issues related to the geopolitical responsibility of companies.
She has published numerous articles and three books: Can Europe Face Globalization? in 2015 by La Documentation Française, Dirty Money: Who Benefits from Crime in 2018, and Geopolitics of the Economy in 2021 by Eyrolles. She is currently preparing an illustrated book on “Economics, Simply Put,” due in September 2023.
