About
Alex Randall Kittredge, SHRM-CP, is a strategy and operations leader and the founder of APR Strategic Consulting. He has been chief of staff three times: to the CEO of Everly, an Eldridge-backed fintech, as employee #20; to the CHRO of Global Industrial, a $1.3B NYSE-listed company; and, on a consulting basis, inside business management at a large multi-strategy hedge fund. He started at Standard Industries, the $12B industrial group and $20B single-family office, where he was promoted three times and trained in DOJ and FBI analytic tradecraft as a founding member of its Corporate Risk & Intelligence team.
He holds an MPhil with distinction from the University of Cambridge and a BA from Columbia University, spent a year at Oxford, and has executive certificates from Harvard Business School Online. He writes ARK Strategy, read by 12,000+ people across platforms, hosts the podcast Not For Distribution, and sits on the board of the Oxford Entrepreneurs Network, where he co-leads a mentoring program for 100+ founders in 73 cities. He lives in Brooklyn.
Featured Work
From Tehran to Tokyo: Foucault, Liberalism and the Politics of Our Time
Why did Michel Foucault, the great skeptic of Western power, become enamored with the Islamic Revolution in Iran? And what does his lesser-known engagement with postwar Japan reveal about the global crisis of liberalism?
In From Tehran to Tokyo, Alex Randall Kittredge unpacks the most enigmatic chapter of Foucault’s political thought—his embrace of a revolution that defied the secular, rationalist ideals of Western liberalism. But this is no simple intellectual biography. Drawing on rich archival research and gripping narrative storytelling, Kittredge places Foucault’s controversial writings on Iran alongside his meditations on Japanese modernity, uncovering a profound and disturbing through-line: a deep suspicion of liberal democracy and a search for alternatives in unexpected places.
This is a story of ideas colliding with history—of Tehran’s streets, Tokyo’s quiet order, and the twilight of Western certainty. For readers of political theory, Middle East studies, global intellectual history, or Foucault studies, this is an unflinching look at how revolutions reshape not only nations, but the minds of those who try to understand them.
Perfect For Readers Who Love:
Orientalism by Edward Said
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
Political theory, Islamic studies, Japan studies, or postcolonial critique
Other Works
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Gary Becker's Theory of Human Capital
2025
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Re-Evaluating Foucault and Kant
2025
