Alexander Ritzmann is a senior advisor with the Counter Extremism Project (CEP). He leads the work of CEP in Europe on (violent) far-right extremist and terrorist (transnational) networks, offline and online, as well as the workstream on effective measures against extremist financial strategies and networks. Additionally, Alexander has been working on extremist and terrorist content and social media regulation since 2016.

Alexander has been working on the prevention and combatting of violent extremism for more than 25 years. He has testified before the German Bundestag, the European Parliament, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Australian Senate and various EU and U.S. governments and agencies on these matters. 

Alexander was a working group leader and senior advisor to the European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) from 2016 to 2024, where he particularly focused on extremist ideologies, narratives and strategic communications. In this capacity he co-developed the GAMMMA+ model for effective alternative and counter narratives, which serves as a tool-kit for practitioners all over the EU and beyond.

Alexander lead democracy promotion projects in Cairo, Egypt, for the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), has co-developed and facilitated the International Forum for Expert Exchange on Countering Islamist Extremism at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), and has published research on the internal structures of Hezbollah and Al Qaeda as a senior research fellow at the Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security (BIGS). 

Alexander has lived and worked in Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Jerusalem and Washington D.C. He has a master’s degree (Diplom) in Political Science from Freie Universität in Berlin.