Nizar Manek is Managing Director of Periplus Research, a London-based firm providing relationship-based intelligence and strategic advice where institutional outcomes depend on realities structurally inaccessible to conventional analysis—across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Periplus applies ethnographic, governance, and political-regulatory analysis through interlocutor networks operating at ministerial, provincial, and coastal levels across 75 jurisdictions. Through these networks, Periplus advises on market and stakeholder intelligence, government relations and political risk, investment execution and deal strategy, and informal authority and enforcement dynamics—with particular depth in telecommunications and infrastructure, ports and maritime, minerals, and energy transitions.

Before founding Periplus, Nizar developed proprietary network infrastructure and methodologies relied upon by top-tier strategic intelligence and advisory firms and European foreign ministries across hundreds of commercial and Track II diplomatic mandates. Previously, he led coverage of the Horn of Africa, Red Sea, and related Middle Eastern affairs for Bloomberg News and Businessweek, and covered North Africa, West Africa, and the Sahel for Africa Confidential. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Le Monde Diplomatique, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, and the London Review of Books, receiving recognition from the European Press Prize, Overseas Press Club of America, and Transparency International. He has contributed to academic literature through Routledge and Harvard's Center for International Development and delivered expert briefings to senior commercial, governmental, and multilateral audiences.

A UK citizen based in London, Nizar previously worked from Addis Ababa, Cairo, Tunis, Istanbul, Yerevan, and Athens. He studied at the London School of Economics, Columbia University (Law and Business Schools), and SOAS, with regional language certifications at Boğaziçi University, the Armenian School of Languages & Cultures, and Koya University. His professional qualifications include OSCE accreditation and specialised training in civil and commercial mediation.