Michael Vintr is a Senior Director at Prescient, a Chicago-based global risk management and intelligence services firm. In his role as the Practice Lead of Prescient´s Intelligence practice, Michael focuses on the firm´s most complex bespoke engagements in business intelligence and manages corporate security solutions with focus on travel risk intelligence. Michael joined Prescient in 2017 and helped to develop many of Prescient´s current best practices around management and research process, including Prescient´s current standards for international due diligence engagements. Outside of Prescient, Michael has held external consultant positions with focus on identifying early indicators of radicalization on social media, as well as general political risk analysis and forecasting.

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Michael holds a Master´s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University´s School of International and Public Affairs, where he focused on international security and was a member of the International Fellows Program.

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In his role as the Director of the PRII, Michael is responsible for setting the long-term strategy of the Institute and ensuring its mission to set professional standards of the risk intelligence industry in the Czech Republic and the wider CEE region.

Filip Scherf is a Co-founder & CEO of PRINCEPS Advisory. Prior to co-founding PRINCEPS, Filip worked on political risk consultancy assignments in multiple countries and institutions, from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Eurasian Studies in New York (US), the RAND Corporation in Cambridge (UK), Eurasia Group in London, and NATO PA in Brussels. Most recently, Filip supported European energy engineering projects in St Petersburg (Russia) and simultaneously contributed as a regional Correspondent to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

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Filip holds a Master of Letters degree from St Andrews University in Scotland where he was placed on the Dean's List for academic excellence, and a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). For his research, Columbia University awarded Filip with the Dasturdaza Dr. Jal Pavry Memorial Award for International Peace and Understanding. Filip was also a Harriman Junior Fellow, a member of the International Fellows Program, and a recipient of the Robert Legvold Fellowship. 

Martin Synkule is a Co-founder & CEO of PRINCEPS Advisory. Previously, Martin briefly freelanced on European political affairs and transnational European funding, leveraging his seven years of experience with European Development Agency in Prague, where served as managing director. 

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Martin has extensive experience in designing and supervising non-investing projects across EU member states on behalf of private companies, NGOs, and the public sectors, with the total value exceeding 100 mil. EUR. 

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Martin holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Durham University and a Master’s degree in European studies from Charles University in Prague. As a part of his academic affiliation with Charles University, Martin leads courses on Current Affairs and British far right in multiple programmes. 

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Martin is a proud member of Durham and Charles University alumni networks.

Emma is the institute's Grants & Fundraising Coordinator. She holds a degree in Area Studies from the Charles University Institute of International Studies with a specialisation in American Studies. During her studies, she published several opinion pieces on the Institute’s blog. One year of her degree was spent abroad at the University of St Andrews in Scotland studying International Relations where she was placed on the Dean’s List for academic excellence.  

Before joining PRINCEPS Advisory, Emma successfully completed an internship with Transparency International Czech Republic, working on the open source database “Our Politicians” and the Czech Defence Companies Anti-Corruption Index as both a researcher and translator. In 2020 Emma was invited to take advantage of a scholarship and attended the Transparency International School on Integrity.

Dániel Cséfalvay is an Expert Member of the PRINCEPS Risk Intelligence Institute. Before joining PRINCEPS, Dániel interned at Oxford Analytica in New York, Horizon Intelligence, and London Politica where he worked on political risk reports, security forecasts and briefings, and in-depth intelligence analyses. 

Dániel graduated from the Central European University with an MA in International Relations, focusing on conflicts and security. He also holds a BA in Political Science from the Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts. During his studies, he spent time abroad in the Netherlands, South Carolina, and New York. Dániel is particularly interested in Middle Eastern politics, especially in the Gulf region. Thanks to his studies in Vienna and Bratislava, he also harbours an interest in Central-Eastern European politics.

Petr is an Expert Member of the PRINCEPS Risk Intelligence Institute. His work experience began parallel to his university studies in a goal-oriented airline service shared center, where he was gradually promoted to middle management and managed a team of 25 at the age of 25. His career then evolved further to responsibility for half the portfolio of a world-renown high-end car brand. Having started in product marketing, he then moved from business operations to communication marketing and was appointed as the first public relations manager of the Audi brand in the Czech Republic. Petr then went freelance and worked as a consultant on different projects in the public and private sectors, focusing strongly on bespoke client relations and outstanding analytical and communication skills.
 
Petr studied at the University of Hamburg and Charles University in Prague, where he obtained his Master’s degree Cum laude in Security studies. His master thesis concerned the dissolution of post-communist federations. His main academic specialisations were modern history, geopolitics and conflict resolution.