Our Team
Our team of specialists is passionate about risk intelligence and its continuous evolution.
Combining passion for knowledge, local expertise, thorough research, advanced technology and professional community, we are here to be your partner in the pursuit of excellence in risk intelligence.
Michael Vintr
Director & Co-founder

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.
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.
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.
Martin Synkule
Co-founder

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.
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.
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.
Martin is a proud member of Durham and Charles University alumni networks.
Emma Letham
Grants & Fundraising Coordinator

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.
Filip Scherf
Co-founder

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.
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.
Isabela Klvaňová
Marketing & PR Specialist

Isabela is the Marketing/PR Specialist at the Princeps Risk Intelligence Institute.
Isabela holds a Bachelor's degree in History and Politics from the University of Warwick. During her studies, she mainly focused on the field of International Relations, especially in the context of digital technology. Her dissertation focused on how private technology companies tackle their involvement in international conflicts and politics, using data privacy breaches and cyberattacks as case studies. She further explored this issue in her article “Russia and the New Face of Warfare” written for the Slovak weekly Tyždeň. Following her studies, Isabela interned on the foreign policy advisory team for the Czech Speaker of the House of Representatives Markéta Pekarová Adamová.
