Virginia Comolli

Virginia Comolli

Senior Fellow for Security and Development, The International Institute for Strategic Studies

Virginia runs the IISS Security and Development Programme that focuses on hybrid insecurity and studies how armed violence affects large urban centres in less-developed countries. Previously, she had been a member of the IISS Transnational Threats and Political Risk team working on international terrorism, radicalisation, organised crime and conflict. In this capacity she was seconded to the UK Ministry of Justice. She has prior commercial experience in private security and strategic intelligence.

Virginia is the editor of “Organised Crime and Illicit Trade” (Pelgrave, 2018), the author of “Boko Haram: Nigeria’s Islamist Insurgency” (Hurst, 2015), and the co-author of “Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: the Problems of Prohibition” (Routledge, 2012).