Macro-financial strategist -- shipping and trade finance, monetary architecture, and the credit behind physical flows

Contact ~ Cargo & Collateral ~ CV ~ LinkedIn ~ ORCiD

I read financial systems as claims and obligations: who owes what to whom, on whose balance sheet, funded how. The method came out of the euro area -- repo, collateral, TARGET, sovereign debt -- and it does not stay there. A rearmament programme is a working-capital cycle before it is a capability. Freight is a credit business wearing logistics clothes, and the credit is what breaks first.

I am a macro strategist and financial analyst in the shipping industry, based in Greece, and an Associate Researcher at the Global Climate Forum in Berlin, where I build balance-sheet models for the OBFA-TRANSFORM Project and the Monetary Architecture Online Tool. I hold a PhD in economics from SOAS University of London, where I wrote on monetary subordination in the Eurozone under Prof. Costas Lapavitsas and lectured until 2025. Until September 2026 I was a defence economist at the UKDSC, within the Ministry of Defence ecosystem, where my reports contributed to shaping MoD policy on measuring defence-industrial productivity, evaluating programme viability, assessing supply-chain resilience and vulnerability, and defining industrial readiness. I am a dual Italian-British national.

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Three lines of work

1 · Shipping and trade finance

Chartering and freight rates, port throughput and tonne-mile demand, forwarder and carrier working capital, and the credit chain behind a single shipment -- read from inside the industry rather than from a screen. Published weekly in Cargo & Collateral.

2 · Macro-financial strategy and research

Commissioned structural reads for allocators, lenders, insurers and policy institutions: where the pressure sits in a sovereign, a sector or a market structure, and what it takes to shift it. What I take on, and how: Work with me.

3 · Monetary architecture and hierarchy

The long-running research programme -- collateral, repo, TARGET and subordination in the euro area, mapped as interlocking balance sheets -- with the Global Climate Forum's OBFA-TRANSFORM project and its public Monetary Architecture tool. The projects: Research Projects. Repo, debt management and central-bank balance sheets also run through Cargo & Collateral.

Cargo & Collateral

Macro-finance and shipping, read through balance sheets and monetary architecture.

Weekly, every Wednesday. Seaborne trade and monetary systems read the same way -- as claims and obligations. Forwarder and carrier working capital, freight rates, ship finance and trade finance on one side; repo markets, debt management offices and euro-area settlement plumbing on the other.

More, and recent entries · Read it on Substack

What the above rests on

Peer-reviewed articles, working papers and a PhD on the euro area -- monetary hierarchy, repo markets, TARGET balances, subordination. Not a line of work in itself; it is why the reads hold up.

• Lapavitsas, C. & Giordano, M. (2026). "ECB monetary policy in a quandary", European Law Open.
• Giordano, M. (2025). "Monetary Subordination in the Eurozone: Pillars and Asymmetries", Competition & Change.
• Murau, S., Goghie, A. & Giordano, M. (2025). "Encumbered Security? Vertical and Horizontal Repos in the Euro Area", Journal of Financial Regulation.
• Murau, S. & Giordano, M. (2024). "Forging monetary unification through novation: the TARGET system", Socio-Economic Review.

Full list on Publications and ORCiD. Presentations and workshops: Talks & Conferences.

Affiliations

• Global Climate Forum, Berlin -- Associate Researcher, OBFA-TRANSFORM
• SOAS University of London
• UKDSC -- UK Defence Solutions Centre (to September 2026)
• SPARCollective -- Founding Member
• European Research Network on Economic and Social Policy (EReNSEP)
• Young Scholars Initiative (YSI), Institute for New Economic Thinking

Disclaimer

The content on this website -- including research, publications, opinions, and other materials -- represents my personal work and views. Nothing on this site should be interpreted as representing the views, positions, or policies of any past or present employer, including the UK Defence Solutions Centre (UKDSC), the Ministry of Defence, or any defence industry primes. All content is provided for informational and educational purposes only, and nothing on this site is investment advice.