Ms Sidiropoulos is the chief executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), an independent foreign policy think-tank based in Johannesburg. She holds an MA in International Relations (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
She has headed the Institute since 2005. Before her current appointment she was director of studies at SAIIA from 1999 to April 2005. She was previously research director at the South African Institute of Race Relations and editor of the highly acclaimed Race Relations Survey (now the South Africa Survey) an annual publication documenting political and constitutional developments, and socio-economic disparities in South Africa.
She is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, the journal of the Graduate Institute of International Development in Geneva and the International Journal Chinese Quarterly of Strategic Studies under the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). She is the editor-in-chief of the South African Journal of International Affairs.
Ms Sidiropoulos serves on the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council on the Future of Regional Organisations, and the WEF Think Tank Leaders Forum. Until recently, she also served on the International Advisory Board of the EU Development Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs.
Her research focus is South Africa’s foreign policy, global governance and the role of emerging powers in Africa. Her most recent works include co-edited volumes on Development cooperation and emerging powers: New Partners or Old Patterns (Zed Books, May 2012) and Institutional Architecture & Development: Responses from Emerging Powers (Jacana, June 2015). Her current research focus is Russia’s renewed presence in Africa, against the background of SA’s membership of the BRICS grouping.