Mvemba Phezo Dizolele is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute and Lecturer in African Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where his work focuses on governance, security, and regional power competition in Africa.

He is the Founder and Managing Director of Dizolele Advisory LLC, a Washington, DC–based research and analysis firm that advises governments, multilateral organizations, and Fortune 500 companies on conflict, political risk, and regional stability across Africa. He also hosts The Africa Program podcast.

Dizolele previously served as Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Africa Senior Adviser at the International Republican Institute, and Course Coordinator for Central and Southern Africa at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. He has also held fellowships at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, including the Peter J. Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellowship and National Fellowship.

He has testified before both chambers of the U.S. Congress and the UN Security Council. He has served as an international election observer in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was also embedded with UN peacekeepers in Ituri and South Kivu as a reporter.

Dizolele has published in Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Newsweek International, The New Republic, Forbes, and other major outlets. He is also a regular media commentator, with appearances on PBS, NPR, CNN, DW, BBC, and Al Jazeera.

He holds an international MBA and an MPP from the University of Chicago, and a BA from Southern Utah University. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, he is fluent in French, Norwegian, Spanish, Swahili, Kikongo, and Lingala and proficient in Danish and Swedish.

Dizolele is the recipient of the SAIS Excellence in Teaching Award, voted by students, and the author of the forthcoming Mobutu: The Rise and Fall of the Leopard King (Random House UK),  a major biography examining the legacy of one of Africa’s most consequential Cold War–era leaders.