Stephen Brien is a Visiting Senior Fellow at Artha Global. He is also Senior Fellow at the Future Africa Forum, and the Chair of the UK Social Security Advisory Committee. 

Prior to this, he worked as the Director of Policy at the Legatum Institute where he led the production of the Legatum Prosperity Index. His research focuses on the political economy of national transformation. Stephen has advised many governments in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa including Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Malawi and CAR. He has been a Director at Social Finance; and he also advised the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) from 2010 to 2013.

Prior to joining DWP, Stephen spent 15 years at Oliver Wyman, where he was a Partner, and served a term as the head of its London Office. He is the author of Dynamic Benefits (the blueprint for Universal Credit) and Outcome-based Government.

He has written on the governance of over twenty countries across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, most recently on democracy and land reform. He has a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics from University College Dublin, and an MSc, DPhil Computation, and an M.A. Law from the University of Oxford.