Currently Senior Associate at OXCON, Maxime is a development economist and geographer specialising in the role of the private sector in driving economic transformation and fostering industrialisation and integration in developing countries. Drawing on his field experience in Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Central Asia, he developed strong research skills, with special expertise in the industrial, agribusiness, and tourism sectors.
His areas of expertise are economic governance, (agro-)industrial and tourism policy, value chain analysis, regional integration, and credit risk assessment. In his research, he endeavours to focus on new trends in emerging markets, such as South-South cooperation, the growing middle-class and bottom of the pyramid markets, inward-looking industrialisation, e-business expansion, and the increasing influence of cultural and institutional practices over the way of consuming and doing business.
His experience working in international development institutions, such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), focused on these developments, and specifically on the West and North Africa regions. He previously worked as a research project manager at the Paris-based Euro-Med think tank IPEMED (The Mediterranean World Economic Foresight Institute), where he analysed how the tourism and manufacturing industry value chains’ expansion drive economic transformation and regional integration in the MENA region.
As a consultant and researcher, Maxime continues to lecture and to author and publish numerous articles and papers in peer-reviewed journals and think tank policy series. He holds a PhD in Economic Geography from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris and a Master’s degree in Geopolitics from Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris, as well as a University Diploma from the Institute of Latin American Studies of Paris.