2026 Baruch-JFQA Climate Finance and Sustainability Conference

March 12-13, 2026

New York City

Conference Program

For any inquiries or further information, please email Matthew.LePere@baruch.cuny.edu.

Keynote Speaker: Ran Duchin

Ran Duchin holds the Coughlin Family chair in the Seidner Department of Finance at the Boston College Carroll School of Management. He received a Ph.D. in finance and business economics from the University of Southern California in 2008. Duchin's research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, climate finance, and political economy. His work studies a wide range of investment decisions, including internal capital allocation, acquisitions, and government bailouts. In his work, he investigates various mechanisms and frictions that shape investment policies (and, more broadly, corporate decision-making), ranging from political economy and financial regulation to agency conflicts, climate risk, and human behavior. Duchin has articles published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies, among others. Several of his papers received best paper awards from leading academic conferences and were selected by journal editors as lead articles. According to Google Scholar, his papers received close to 10,000 citations and were cited in top journals of other disciplines, including Accounting, Management, Strategy, and Business Law. His work has also attracted attention from many popular national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, and The Washington Post. Duchin currently serves as Managing Editor of The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. He also served as an Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies.

Keynote Speaker: Laura Starks

Laura T. Starks, Ph.D., is the George Kozmetsky Centennial Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on sustainable finance. Her current research focuses on sustainable finance issues, including climate risk and shareholder proxy voting, as well as investor expectations and financial decisions. She has won many awards for her research and teaching, including the 2022 Skandia Research Award on Long-Term Savings for contributions to the field of banking, insurance and financial services and the 2021 Moskowitz Prize for outstanding research in sustainable finance, which is the premier global prize for research in sustainable finance. She is Research Associate of the NBER, Fellow at the AFA, ECGI, CEPR, FMA and Senior Fellow for ABFER. She has served in a number of editorial positions including Editor of the Review of Financial Studies. She has been President of the AFA, SFS, WFA and FMA. She has served on mutual funds’ boards of directors, pension fund advisory committees, the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute, and advisory committees for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund. She currently serves on advisory boards or committees for AIF Global, FTSE-Russell, Kroner Center for Financial Research, Investment Company Institute, Netspar, and the PRI (Principles of Responsible Investing), where she is also Chair of the Academic Network Advisory Committee.

Panel Discussion:

Climate and Sustainability, Perspectives from Educators, Asset Managers, Firms and Standard Setters

Moderator: Kai Li

Dr. Li, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Class of 2022), holds the Canada Research Chair in Corporate Governance and the W. Maurice Young Endowed Chair in Finance at the UBC Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia. She is Managing Editor of the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Her current research projects include: (1) corporate culture, (2) machine learning in finance, and (3) green innovation. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Management Science, the Journal of International Business Studies, and many other leading journals in finance and economics. She is a Senior Fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research and a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. She is a Director of the American Finance Association, a former Chair of the Academic Female Finance Committee, a former Director of the Western Finance Association, a former Council Member of the Society of Financial Studies, and a former Trustee of the Financial Association International.

Panelist: Christina Ho

Christina Ho is Vice President of Strategic Planning at Consolidated Edison Company of New York, overseeing market and technology analysis, corporate strategy, and growth initiatives for Con Edison’s regulated utilities. With more than two decades in the energy industry, she has held senior leadership roles across operations, engineering, and customer service. She previously managed real-time dispatch of electric and steam generation resources at Con Edison’s Energy Control Center and led business development and long-range strategy for Steam Operations. She also served as Vice President of Customer Service at Orange & Rockland and later returned to Con Edison to lead Steam Operations in Manhattan. Ms. Ho holds degrees from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Cooper Union.

Panelist: Andrew Karolyi

Dean Karolyi is the Charles Field Knight Dean at Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. A scholar in investment management specializing in international financial markets, he has published extensively in journals and has published several books. His research is featured in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Time, New York Times, among others. He leads executive education programs across the globe and is actively consulting with corporations, banks, investment firms, stock exchanges, and law firms. Karolyi serves as a Global Advisory Councilor for Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) and serves on the Board of Directors for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Karolyi received his BA (Honors) in economics from McGill University and earned his MBA and PhD degrees in finance at the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago.

Panelist: Veronica Poole

Veronica Poole is Vice Chair of Deloitte UK and Deloitte Global IFRS and Corporate Reporting Leader. She drives change in the accounting profession and plays a prominent role in facilitating harmonisation of standards to advance a comprehensive corporate reporting system. She leads Deloitte’s contributions to the World Economic Forum International Business Council’s ‘Reporting for Business Resilience’ initiative. She led WEF’s contribution to the IFRS Foundation’s Technical Readiness Working Group that developed prototype standards and made recommendations to the ISSB. She helped launch a UK directors’ forum – Chapter Zero – and spearheaded Deloitte’s partnership with A4S, a charity of King Charles III’s, on the Finance for the Future Awards.

Panelist: Brian Singer

Brian is global head of GS SUSTAIN for Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs. Founded in 2007, GS SUSTAIN provides research and data tools that explore how innovation, regulation and implementation of sustainability-related topics will impact investing and broader capital flows. Brian joined the GS SUSTAIN team in 2021, after more than 22 years in Energy equity research. Previously, he was business unit leader for Americas Energy and Utilities equity research, and senior equity research analyst covering the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production sector. Since joining Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 1998, he has covered Energy companies based in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Russia, South Africa and the United States. Brian was named managing director in 2013. Brian earned a BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Panelist: Diana Stoltzfus

Diana Stoltzfus is a partner in the PwC Professional Practice Group within the National Office. Diana helps to shape our Firm’s perspective on regulatory matters, responses to rulemakings (e.g., Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures), and policy development and implementation related to significant new rules and regulations. Prior to rejoining PwC, Diana was the Deputy Chief Accountant in the Office of the Chief Accountant (OCA) at the SEC where she led the activities of the Professional Practices Group within the OCA. She focused on providing guidance related to auditing, independence, and internal controls. Prior to the SEC, she was a PwC Assurance Partner leading the audits of several key clients. Diana holds a degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Arizona and is a Certified Public Accountant in California and Virginia.

Conference Co-organizers/Co-Sponsors

Ran Duchin (Coughlin Family Professor, Boston College, Managing Editor, JFQA)

Kai Li (Canada Research Chair in Corporate Governance and W. Maurice Young Endowed Chair in Finance, UBC, Managing Editor, JFQA)

Lin Peng (Krell Chair Professor in Finance, Baruch College)

Dexin Zhou (Associate Professor, Baruch College)

Svenjia Dube (Assistant Professor, Baruch College)

Program Committee

Pat Akey (ESSEC), Elsa Allman (French Central Bank), Ian Appel (UVA Darden), Aymeric Bellon (UNC Chapel Hill), Jie Cao (HK Poly U), Dmitry Chebotarev (Indiana University), Shira Cohen (SDSU), Elroy Dimson (Cambridge), Joey Engelberg (UCSD), Janet Gao (Georgetown), Zhenyu Gao (CUHK), Daniel G. Garrett (UPenn), Shan Ge (NYU), Stefano Giglio (Yale), Mariassunta Giannetti (Stockholm School of Economics), Matthew Gustafson (Penn State), Umit Gurun (UT Dallas), Ai He (U of South Carolina), Christoph Herpfer (UVA Darden), Shiyang Huang (HKU), Wenxi Jiang (CUHK), Igor Kadach (IESE), Sehoon Kim (U of Florida), Andrei Kirilenko (Cambridge), Ugur Lel (UGA), Doron Levit (U of Washington), Ryan Lewis (CU Boulder), Kai Li (Peking U (HSBC)), Jiasun Li (George Mason), Weikai Li (CityU HK), Hao Liang (Singapore Management University), Lisa Yao Liu (Columbia), Daniele Macciocchi (U of Miami), Pedro Matos (UVA), Roni Michaely (HKU), Adair Morse (UC Berkeley), Philip Mulder (Wisconsin Madison), Dermot Murphy (UIC), Lilian Ng (York University), Sangmin Oh (Columbia), Enrichetta Ravina (Northwestern), Lukas Roth (U of Alberta), Ethan Rouen (Harvard), Hong Ru (MIT), Parinitha Sastry (UPenn), Zacharias Sautner (U of Zurich), Christoph M. Schiller (Ohio State University), Thomas Schmid (HKU), Ishita Sen (Harvard), Sophie Shive (Notre Dame), Nikki Skinner (U of Colorado), Denis Sosyura (Arizona State University), Yuehua Tang (U of Florida), Lucian A. Taylor (UPenn), Nitzan Tzur-Ilan (Dallas Fed), Peter Tufano (Harvard), Yongxiang Wang (SAIF), Jeffrey Wurgler (NYU), Steven Xiao (UT Dallas), Qiping Xu (UIUC), Constantine Yannelis (Cambridge), Ayako Yasuda (UC Davis), Aaron Yoon (Northwestern), Xiaoyun Yu (SAIF), Hong Zhang (Singapore Management University), Shaojun Zhang (Ohio State University), Xin Zheng (UBC), Qifei Zhu (NUS)

Acknowledgement

The conference organizers thank the following for their generous support:

The Zicklin School of Business - A leader in public business education, dedicated to advancing knowledge and preparing students for success in a dynamic global economy.

The Robert A. Schwartz Center for Trading and Financial Markets Research – Dedicated to promoting the inclusion of trading and security market structure in academic curricula.

The Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity – A forum for discussion of a broad range of issues confronting U.S. corporations and capital markets.

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