CEO and Founder

Eric Wolterstorff
PhD

Dr. Wolterstorff’s expertise is cultural psychosocial development and group trauma, in particular the behavior of societies responding to existential, long-term threats. He founded and leads Sovereignty First.

Since 2012, Dr. Wolterstorff has worked with the US stability operations and nation-building community, including the Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction, the US Army War College, the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy and other peacebuilding NGOs, active and retired ambassadors, generals and colonels, politicians, and investors to develop tools to improve self-governance, the quality and likelihood of success of stability operations, and investments in politically and culturally opaque countries with weak rule of law and contract enforcement.

As the head of a crisis management firm, he led five successful turnarounds in the United States and Indonesia, and is part-owner and serves a senior advisor Cooperative Capacity Partners. As a psychotherapist, he trained hundreds of trauma psychotherapists in the United States and Germany.

Dr. Wolterstorff’s goal is to help social impact investor ecosystem builders trying to solve complex problems in frontier markets.