Preston is Managing Partner and co-founder of Independent Economics.

He leads the organisation on all aspects of strategy, team leadership, and key client and assignment management across its global network.

With expertise across economics, policy, and political issues, Preston works substantively on all projects. He has written on and led projects on subjects ranging from macroeconomics, decarbonisation of industry, digitalisation, and international trade, through to geoeconomic and geopolitical risk.

Before co-founding the organisation in 2009 he spent ten years in industry on analysis, corporate strategy, business development, communications, and marketing.

Preston holds a BA and an MSc (Maitrise Sc. Ec.) in Economics with French from the University of Sussex and the University of Grenoble, and an MBA from Imperial College, London.

John co-heads both our Macroeconomics and Financial Markets team, and our Expert witness and litigation support practice areas. He plays a major part in all of our conjunctural and other economic analysis. 

He has a broad experience, having worked in academia, international and then national policymaking, and in investment banking. Before advising HM Treasury during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath, and co-founding the firm in 2009, John was Global Chief Economist and then Senior Economic Policy Advisor at Lehman Brothers. This followed almost twenty years at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, where he was successively Head of International Forecasting and Policy Analysis and Editor of the OECD Economic Outlook; Deputy Director for Social Affairs, Manpower and Education, and finally Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary-General. 

Prior to that he spent nearly ten years at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge, and was also a Fellow of St. John’s College. 

John holds an undergraduate degree from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a doctorate from the University of Oxford. He has published widely.

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Chris provides actuarial expert witness reports in personal injury, fatal accident, and loss of earnings and pension cases. His work includes advising on discount rates in non-standard cases and assessing life expectancy where multiple factors are present.

Chris has been instructed in more than 140 cases across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and Trinidad & Tobago. His landmark cases include Helmot v Simon in the Royal Court of Guernsey, Thomson v Thomson in the Supreme Court of Bermuda, and Swift v Carpenter in the Court of Appeal of England & Wales. In 2024, Chris was a member of the expert panel established by the Government of Guernsey to make recommendations on setting the discount rate.

From 1989 to 2007, Chris was Government Actuary and head of the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD), having joined the Department in 1970. His work covered pensions, social security, demography, insurance supervision, and compensation for personal injury, while also advising other jurisdictions on pensions and social security. From 1978 to 1980, he was seconded to HM Treasury.

Chris prepared the 2nd to 6th editions of the Ogden Tables and remains an independent member of the Ogden Working Party, having played a significant role in the 8th edition. He has also served as President of the Institute of Actuaries and Chairman of the Actuarial Association of Europe. Appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1993, Chris has received the Gold Medal of the Institute of Actuaries and the Medal of the International Actuarial Association. He is also co-author of Practical Risk Theory for Actuaries and an honorary visiting professor at City University, London.

Chris holds a first-class honours degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge and qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1973.

Silja co-heads the firm’s Innovation & Sustainability practice area. She is also a core member of the firm’s Macroeconomics and Financial Markets team and part of the Expert Witness and Litigation Support team. 

Silja is a key contributor to the firm’s bespoke research projects, and to the regular macroeconomic analysis. She has a particular specialisation in environmental and technology issues. Silja has produced an important suite of corporate briefs on the environmental impacts of a wide range of sectors and activities, many of which have been published by the Sustainable Markets Initiative, launched by the former Prince of Wales. 

Prior to joining the team, Silja was a Senior Investment Analyst at GLC Global Macro hedge fund, where she was responsible for macroeconomic research and market analysis, with a primary focus on emerging markets and FX. Before that, Silja worked for Lehman Brothers as an Emerging Markets Economist, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe. While at the bank Silja was responsible for macroeconomic forecasts and market analysis, leading meetings with the region’s policymakers, speaking with journalists, and contributing regularly to the weekly and monthly publications.

​Silja holds a first-class honours degree in Economics and Business Administration from Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, and an MSc in Economics from Stockholm School of Economics.