Biography – Dennis Shen
Photo: London
Dennis Shen is a macroeconomist and a Senior Director of sovereign credit ratings with Scope Ratings GmbH – the European rating agency – based in Berlin, Germany. He is a strong and passionate believer in strengthening the precision of economic and financial judgment and forecasting – for anchoring better public-policy outcomes and supporting greater efficiency of global financial markets.
Dennis co-authored the “DSSI+” debt-restructuring framework, and is an advocate of strengthened global debt relief aiding low- and middle-income economies. He believes in credit-rating industry reform. Alongside economist Moritz Krämer, Dennis presented a loss-given-default sovereign-rating framework as one concept for incentivising more comprehensive sovereign debt restructuring.
Dennis has appeared on CNBC Europe, Bloomberg TV Bulgaria and CGTN Africa, with research and commentary featured across print and online mediums such as Reuters, Bloomberg, and The Financial Times, and cited across magazines and books including Wirtschaftskrieg (2020). He has received Focus Economics analyst forecast awards, and was a member of the jury for the 2022 Emerging Europe Awards and panellist for Jubilee Germany during the 2022 G7 finance ministers meetings from Bonn, Germany.
A graduate of the London School of Economics (LSE), Dennis believes stalwartly in his university motto of “rerum cognoscere causa” – to know the causes of things – and seeks in his professional life to better understand how the world works and address problems through reinforcing this understanding. A regular contributor for the LSE, his research on a crisis of narcissism and associated socio-psychological effects on governance and economic cycles received recognition.
Dennis supports the Berlin-based NGO, Visioneers gGmbH, on the Supervisory Board and helping on German-English translations. Dennis sits as member of the Experts Board of Wikirating Association, and has been an external lecturer on sovereign ratings at International School of Management (Germany).
Before joining Scope Group in 2017, Dennis was an economist with Alliance Bernstein (AB) – a global institutional money manager – in New York and London. At AB, Dennis worked on projects such as architecting the Carson-Shen monetary policy rule with Chief Economist Joseph Carson and assessing the dynamic nature of fiscal multipliers. He was a member of Paul Denoon's acclaimed emerging market debt group.
Dennis completed the Master of Public Administration (MPA) in International Development from the LSE, during which he co-founded the programme's The Public Sphere Journal and led the programme in 2012 and 2013 conference debates against Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. In London, Dennis completed public-speaking training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He graduated from undergraduate studies from Cornell University with concentration in Financial Engineering.
Dennis has a record of precise assessments and forecasting ranging from the 2014-15 Greek crisis to Brexit to the Covid-19 economic crisis.
Having a passion for environmental sustainability, he supports integration of environment, social and governance (ESG) considerations in finance. While residing in New York, he co-founded the Junior Ocean Council of Oceana – the world's largest organisation dedicated to ocean preservation. Dennis completed his Dissertation from the LSE with Distinction on the economics of hypoxia.
Dennis was born in Sichuan Province of mainland China and grew up in the United States. He resides with his spouse, whom he met during university in London, and daughter in Berlin.