Tamara Makarenko: Exploring Explosive Investment Markets – How to Make Money in Afghanistan

In 2010, The Lunch Circled welcomed Ms. Tamara Makarenko as our speaker. Her speech titled, “Exploring explosive investment markets – how to make money in Afghanistan”, was absolutely captivating as Tamara discussed how to harness investment opportunities in the fragile state of Afghanistan.

Tamara is a partner of a boutique intelligence firm – but previously traveled the world as a quasi-academic and freelance intelligence operative investigating the interaction between organised crime and terrorism. During this time she paid the bills by advising governments (from Afghanistan to the U.S.) and writing a plethora of articles. Her most culinary delightful assignment was uncovering the operations of the Caspian caviar mafia. Designing intelligence networks and managing sources started as a professional requirement necessary to collect information, and has evolved into a ‘real job’ that utilises these networks to locate emerging and frontier market investment opportunities.