Professor of Financial Economics, School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London
Member, Corporate Finance Expert Panel, Competition and Markets Authority
I study how banks, investors, and firms make financing decisions, and the rules that shape them. My research falls into three streams: how banks and other lenders use information, and what their lending decisions mean for investment in the real economy; how institutional investors trade, vote, and shape prices in capital markets; and how firms invest, organise themselves, and are held to account.
Before academia, I spent three years at Royal Dutch Shell, across M&A, project finance, and strategy, where I led financial modelling, cost of capital analysis, and valuation of energy projects. I began my career as a consultant at IBM. My research reflects that experience. I work on questions that lenders, investors, boards, and regulators face in practice.
From 2020 to 2024, I led Queen Mary's School of Economics and Finance as Head of School, with responsibility for 70 academics, 35 professional services staff, and 2,000 students. I steered the School through the pandemic years. Working with colleagues across the School, we raised research output to 4th in the UK in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, from 14th in 2014. I led on global engagement, growing the School's MSc finance programmes and building partnerships with universities overseas. We launched apprenticeship degrees with the Government Economic Service, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank. The undergraduate economics programme was ranked top in England for social mobility (IFS/Sutton Trust, 2021).
Since October 2024, I have served on the Competition and Markets Authority's Corporate Finance Expert Panel, one of four appointed experts and the only academic. I advise on cost of capital, profitability, and financial analysis across the CMA's casework.
My research has appeared in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Management Science, among others, including eight articles in Financial Times Top 50 journals. It has won the BlackRock and NACD Global Challenge for Innovation Award and the CNMV Prize for the Best Paper in Regulation. I hold a PhD in Finance from London Business School.
Away from finance, I am a director of my local rugby club, where I chair the junior section and coach. I wrote for LPM UK on a week spent learning Le Plaisir du Mouvement, the coaching method behind Toulouse's attacking rugby.