Marek Matraszek is based in Warsaw. He was born to Polish parents in the UK in 1962, and studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1984. Following a year in Poland teaching at the Catholic University of Lublin, he returned to Oxford to obtain a Master’s degree in Russian and East European Studies in 1987. He then continued his studies at Oxford, reading for a doctoral dissertation on ideological currents in the pre-Solidarity anticommunist underground. During this time he was the Secretary of The Jagiellonian Trust, a UK charity established to provide intellectual and material assistance to anti-regime intellectuals and activists in Central Europe, prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

He moved to Poland in 1990 as a freelance political consultant, and worked closely with both the British Conservative Party and the US Republican Party in assisting their activities in Central Europe. During this time he was the Director of The Jagiellonian Foundation, continuing the work of the Trust, and providing support to academics and intellectuals in the newly liberated countries of the region. In 1992 he was appointed to represent the Margaret Thatcher Foundation in Poland, and from 1993 established and ran The Windsor Group, a free-market and pro-Western think-tank promoting freedom, the rule of law, and membership of NATO for Central European countries. Today he is the Chairman of Conservatives Abroad in Poland.

He has written widely on Polish and international affairs for publications such as Poland Monthly, Warsaw Business Journal, The Spectator and Wall Street Journal Europe, and has published a study of the Polish political scene, The Politics of Restoration. He is a regular commentator on Polish politics for Polish Radio, the BBC, CNN, CNBC and other television outlets.

He is the Founding Partner of CEC Government Relations. He specialises in designing and implementing strategic communications and public affairs campaigns for major US, UK and European multinationals, and advising on their political strategy in the region as a whole. Although his experience stretches across most industrial sectors, he has a special expertise in defence, aviation and energy issues, and currently advises a number of Western defence and energy companies in Poland and elsewhere.

A UK citizen, he speaks Polish fluently.