RedPeak Economics Consulting

Our Team

Cristian Santesteban, Founder and CEO

Cristian founded RedPeak in 2010 after working at Compass Lexecon (and its predecessors) for almost a decade. In his career, Cristian has worked on some of the most important mergers and antitrust cases of the last two decades, involving firms such as AT&T, Intel, and Comcast. His experience in litigation consulting spans both defense and plaintiff cases and a broad range of antitrust issues, including monopolization, class certification, price fixing, mergers, and damages. He has particular industry expertise in digital platforms, financial markets, semiconductors, media, telecom, biomedical products, food products, commodities, among others. Cristian has testified as expert witness in price fixing, class certification, and monopolization matters. Cristian has led teams in proceedings in U.S. Federal and State courts, as well as administrative agencies in the U.S., Europe and New Zealand. He also performs economic analysis for private sector clients not involved in litigation. He has worked with firms in valuing their client portfolios, consulted on pricing strategies, and contributed his analytical and statistical skills for business strategy. Cristian is Affiliate Faculty at the University of Washington. Prior to the UW, Cristian had been Lecturer in Economics at Stanford University from 2012-21 and Lecturer Teaching Fellow at UC Berkeley from 2010-12, where he taught microeconomics, game theory, and industrial organization. Cristian also worked in the Clinton White House as a Staff Economist in the Council of Economics Advisers. In that role, he was responsible for industrial organization, regulation, and technology issues. Cristian holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford, completed a Maîtrise in Economics from Université Paris Nanterre, and has a BS in Electrical Engineering from UT Austin. He loves dense cities as well as rugged mountains, especially those with red peaks.

Amre Abken, Economist

Amre is a microeconomist who combines theory and econometric and machine learning tools to draw insights that help attorneys, business leaders, and policy makers to address challenging problems. He is particularly interested in measuring the welfare transfer from different policies and the consequences of non-price competition. Amre also applies his economic toolkit to issues in antitrust and damages calculations. Amre has an M.A. in economics from University of Washington and is originally from Kazakhstan, where he earned a B.A. in economics at Nazarbayev University.

Alireza Aminkhaki, Economist

Alireza is an economist with experience in econometrics, quantitative modeling, causal inference and industrial organization. He is a highly versatile analyst with capabilities in R, Python, and Stata that allow him to solve a broad range of complex empirical problems. In the antitrust context, Alireza has experience working with large proprietary datasets to draw insights for clients and experts alike. Alireza is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Washington and holds a master's degree in Economics from Sharif University of Technology in Iran.

Grant Hayes, Economist

Grant investigates issues relating to corporate governance and regulation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is particularly interested in examining how efficient governance structures vary across firms, and how boards of directors respond to personal, rather than firm, incentives. Previously, he was a researcher in labor economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Grant graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in economics and statistics and is currently pursuing a PhD at Booth.

Ilia Kapelevich, Economist

Ilia is an applied microeconomist with a focus on econometric methods and industrial organization. He applies his expertise to solve real-world economic problems in both consulting and research settings. Ilia's professional interests encompass a range of topics, especially antitrust litigation and policy research. Ilia has collaborated on numerous interdisciplinary projects in various countries, which has allowed him to develop interpersonal skills valuable in team settings. Moreover, his knowledge of English, German, and Russian further enables him to communicate effectively in diverse settings. Ilia is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Florida. Prior to this, he completed an M.Sc. in Quantitative Economics at Yeshiva University in New York City and a B.A. in Finance at Lauder Business School in Vienna, Austria.