Marvin Cheung is a strategy advisor and a thought leader in sustainable development, who specializes in delivering actionable insights in high-risk environments. He takes a research-led approach to help organizations deliver impact, anticipate stakeholder concerns, and navigate the rapidly changing global landscape with ease. He has been a featured speaker at the UN General Assembly Science Summit, and a speaker at Boards Impact forum, Chairman’s Network, as well as MIT.

Cheung's interest in interpreting and contextualizing data as a qualitative researcher led him to tech, where he advised and consulted for startups. Since 2020, he has co-directed the Center for Global Agenda (CGA) and directed the Venture Strategy Group (VSG) at Unbuilt Labs. He is a Co-Managing Director of Quantum First, an incubator for quantum startups. He is also an external reviewer for the Johns Hopkins 2025 Graduate Venture Award, a proposal reviewer for 2025 MIT IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge, and a mentor at Yale University's Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking.

His work is grounded in an astute understanding of complex global systems. In 2022, Cheung succeeded the advisor to four successive Directors General at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) as Chair of the Global Consortium for Systems Research (GCSR). His international relations bestseller (Amazon U.S.) on system transformation methods, "5 Ideas from Global Diplomacy" (2024), develops a novel approach to solve grand challenges known as Transdisciplinary Systems Research. He has served as a Global Diplomacy Fellow and an Expert on SDGs and Strategic Planning at the United Nations.

Cheung holds an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a BFA (Hons) from the Parsons School of Design. He was a Departmental Visiting Student at the University of Oxford and completed Columbia Business School's Venture Capital Program for executives. He has been advised by Lauren Redniss (MacArthur “Genius” Fellow) at Parsons, Sir Michael Leigh (former Director-General for Enlargement at the European Commission) at SAIS, and H.E. Amb. Dr. Yuriy Sergeyev (former Elected Member of the UN Security Council, Chair of the Sixth Committee on Legal Affairs, and Lecturer at Yale) at UNITAR.

"Mr. Cheung distinguished himself as [...] a capable researcher" — H.E. Amb. Dr. Sergeyev

“[Cheung’s] work is captivating and gives us hope” — Prof. Charalee Graydon, former Oxford Climate Alumni Network (OxCan) Chair of Trustees and Rhodes Scholar

"[A] thought leader" — Boards Impact Forum